Cape Town - ActionSA has welcomed moves to halt the signing the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill and refer it back to Parliament.
This after DA spokesperson for Education, Baxolile Nodada, said the party was “committed to fighting it every step of the way, from parliamentary chambers to the president’s office”.
“Instead of engaging in meaningful discussions about the widespread implications of the bill and the changes made by the National Council of Provinces, the ANC chairperson refused to follow Parliamentary protocol and denied opposing parties’ right to include thorough inputs to the changes,” Nodada said.
“A genuinely caring government would have listened to and addressed the concerns of the public – the majority of whom totally rejected the Bela Bill.
A caring government would have amended the deeply problematic clauses that continues to disempower schools and communities and stomps on the rights of parents. Instead the ANC government left a back door that still makes it the final authority on language and admissions in schools,” said Nodada.
ActionSA Parliamentary Caucus Chief Whip Lerato Ngobeni said the party had argued that the bill, marred by widespread objection, is a flawed legislative attempt to “camouflage the structural deficiencies of South Africa’s education system, resulting from decades of systemic mismanagement".
“From disempowering parents and SGBs, to the blanket lifting of the ban on the sale of alcohol at schools, granting DBE unilateral powers to set a school’s language, the ill-thought-out introduction of compulsory grade R, and the outdated use of the SocioEconomic Impact Assessment which does not adequately estimate the fiscal and economic impact of implementing the bill, these are some of the reasons why this bill must urgently be sent back to Parliament for revision,” Ngobeni said.
“ActionSA, now represented in the 7th Parliament, will fight to ensure that the bill, if referred back to Parliament, meaningfully reflects the substantive contributions and necessary amendments, including those proposed by civil society, to address the real deficiencies that have led to the decline of our education system,” said Ngobeni.
Cape Argus