Education expert Professor Mary Metcalfe says she expects careful and considered engagements around the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act to take place over the next three months in provinces across the country.

Metcalfe was speaking during an exclusive interview with SAnews, following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the then Bill into law, and subsequent announcement that its implementation would be delayed by three months.

READ | President Ramaphosa signs BELA Bill

This after some public outcry over clauses 4 and 5 of the Act, which speak to school admissions, language policies and compulsory Grade R.

‘My expectation is that there will be very careful interaction with provinces in terms of Grade R and realistic dates of implementation that match careful planning… and that would be clause 4 of BELA.

‘In terms of clause 5 of BELA, what is important primarily there is for the discussions to recognise firstly that BELA doesn’t change any existing constitutional or legal provisions in law.

‘What BELA does is it takes the license from all court cases, including Constitutional Court cases, where that procedural fairness that has been followed by a potential education department has been found to be wanting, where the provincial Education Department could have managed the conversation between the school governing body (SGB) and itself in a way that was more careful,’ she said.

Metcalfe allayed fears that the delay in implementation of the Act may leave education departments without policy direction.

‘What happens in those three months [is that]… we continue to use the existing law so we’re not in a vacuum. There is a law, the previous Basic Education Laws Amendment Act, which is based on the South African Schools Act and that will continue to guide the work of education departments and give direction to the public,’ she said.

Clause 5

There has been opposition to two particular clauses in the Act. The opposition stems from the belief that the clauses take away the powers of an SGB to make deci
sions on school admissions and language policies.

With respect to clause 5, there been opposition based on the belief that schools, which operate in languages either than English will be prejudiced, impacting mother tongue instruction.

The clauses, in fact, state that an SGB retains control over these policies, provided that the policies are submitted to a provincial Head of Department for approval in accordance with the Constitution.

READ | Government Gazette on the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act

On the language policy issue, Metcalfe emphasised that there is ‘a lot of miscommunication in the public around what BELA is doing with mother tongue education’.

‘The first principle that everybody needs to understand is that the right to instruction in your mother tongue is enshrined in the Constitution.

‘The Constitution says everybody has a right to learn in their language of choice and it is the responsibility of the school governing bodies and the [provincial] Education Departments to ensure that this
is practicable, practical, and that it takes into account the circumstances,’ she said.

Pressing further, the education expert added that changing demographics and population shifts, which impact language use in certain areas, require schools to adapt to the people that they serve.

‘We have contexts, where we have very intermingled multilingual communities. A good example, of course is the large urban metropolitan areas like Soweto where you find all South African languages.

‘If, for example, you take a part of the eastern area of Limpopo, where you might have Tshivenda and Xitsonga language speakers in one community, and you might find that there have been demographic changes where the Tshivenda speaking population is growing and the Xitsonga speaking population is reducing. You would then find that the Tshivenda learners might need more spaces than those that exist in Xitsonga schools.

‘In [this] case, it would be the responsibility of the department to speak to the school governing body of the Xitsonga
speaking schools to say, is there a way in which we can use the spare capacity in your school, and have a dual medium or parallel medium school, so that the Tshivenda speaking learners are able to get a place in schools. That’s not controversial. Most South Africans would understand that,’ she said.

The BELA Act, Metcalfe said, ‘spells out the procedures by which the Basic Education Department will engage’ SGBs to ‘suggest that the school should be dual medium or parallel medium, so that the available spaces in the public school are used in the best interests’.

Grade R admission

The Act now compels parents to send children to Grade R for compulsory schooling.

Metcalfe again laid aside fears that government is attempting to ‘criminalise parents’.

‘Currently in South Africa, we have about 96% to 97% of learners in Grade R. So already, there’s almost complete participation of learners who are five turning six in Grade R.

‘However, that [was] not yet compulsory, and what that means is that while many public
schools have Grade R attached, because it’s not compulsory, the State is not responsible for teachers’ salaries or necessarily for infrastructure, although often public infrastructure is used for Grade R. Once Grade R becomes compulsory, then the State must pay the teachers, and must make sure that all of the resources are there and the infrastructure.

‘Bringing attendance and compulsory attendance one year earlier means that we are able to reach children. [This is] particularly important, given the levels of inequality in our country, that young children are able to access formal learning… where they are exposed to text, where they’re exposed to group learning. It’s a good thing that we do this earlier,’ she said.

Metcalfe urged parents and SGBs to rest assured that the new Act sets out guidelines on the two school policies and how Education Departments act.

‘[BELA] sets out that if the provincial Head of Department doesn’t agree with the decisions of a school governing body, [the Act] sets out every step
of the process that follows: how parents are consulted; how this is publicly communicated; the principles by which the decision must be taken by the provincial Education Department, including ensuring that the necessary resources are there; how this has been communicated to the school and the community, and then what the school governing body can do to appeal.

‘So in my view, the detailed specifications of BELA also protect school governing bodies so that they can be sure that decisions are procedurally fair, and if they not, they are reviewable in terms of our courts,’ Metcalfe said.

Source: South African Government News Agency