MEDIA RELEASE
2024-09-13

SUMMARY: The Labour Party of South Africa (Labour Party) comments on the BELA Act, which was signed into law earlier today. It raises certain concerns including the centralisation of power to provincial government at the expense of parental control and local community involvement, as well as issues related to employment and workers’ rights. The Party questions whether these superficial changes really amount to real transformation, when it is more crucialto focus on issues like teacher training and support and redesigning the curriculum to meet the needs of the economy.

Earlier today, the State President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Basic Education Law Amendments (BELA) Bill into law. The BELA process has been ongoing for around 11 years, during which various amendments were proposed and incorporated. At the signing, the State President indicated that a further three months would be allowed for limited consultation on clauses 4 and 5 of the bill.

“We were very concerned about earlier versions of the BELA Bill”, said Labour Party leader, Joseph Mathunjwa. “Even though some of these concerns have been addressed during the process, we still have some other reservations about the bill and the implementation of it”, Mathunjwa said.

Earlier concerns on first versions of the BELA Bill included changes on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), even though such changes do not reflect in the current version. There were also other rumours about other wholesale issues related to sexuality and religion, even though these aspects are not, at least directly, addressed in the version signed into law.

“As the Labour Party, we believe that it is a core principle that parents must have ultimate control over their children, and not the schools or the government. The fact that the Act allows for parents to be sidelined in certain circumstances when it comes to learner pregnancies, pose a serious risk to the moral and ethical facets of communities”, said Mathunjwa. “South Africans are generally deeply religious, and we treasure family values and religious beliefs, especially when it comes to issues like dealing with unwanted pregnancies”, he added.

Several other political parties, some within the Government of National Unity (GNU) have expressed concerns about the BELA Act. These include the increased powers given to provincial Heads of Departments (HODs) over school language and admission policies, the undermining of the autonomy of school governing bodies, as well as the reduction of parental involvement in critical decisions regarding school governance.

“As the Labour Party, we strongly believe in decentralised forms of government, such as federalism which is a core part of our policy framework. The notion that state bureaucrats will now be able to remote control the assets and resources of communities – often for the sake of political expediency – is totally against our vision for a fair and just South Africa”, said Mathunjwa. “It is both unethical and illogical at the same time”, he said.

Over and above governance concerns, there are also concerns that the Labour Party shares with other trade unions and movements in the education sector.

“We are living in the age of austerity, where the government is cutting budgets left, right and centre”, said Mathunjwa. “Now they want to increase the need for more teachers as Grade R is made compulsory at primary schools”, he said.

“As the Labour Party – a party for the workers – our focus will always be on balancing governance with the job security and working conditions of teachers and other workers in this sector. As we stated before, we have called for the re-introduction of teacher training colleges to ensure that we have sufficient and well-equipped teachers to teach our children”, he said.

“While we do believe that government must give direction to educational institutions, we firmly assert that this must be balanced with parental control and local community involvement. Just like there are differences between different provinces, there are vast differences between cities, towns and communities. “Our education system must cater for this diversity within our country, so that we can build a future for all our citizens”, Mathunjwa said.

“The key question here is whether this should really be the main priority now, and whether this is not just another tick-box exercise by this government to look as if they are doing something, while they are just moving around furniture while the house is on fire”, he said.

“The sad fact is that the current education system as a whole does not help a black child in particular. We need to overall it completely, looking at issues like the curriculum being amended to have proper skills that are needed by our economy”, Mathunjwa said.

According to the Labour Party’s “Seven Steps to a New Tomorrow” policy document, the education system must be transformed by, amongst others, improving teacher training and support and updating the curriculum to cater for economic demand.

The Party calls for an education system that focuses on teaching students practical, problem-solving skills they can utilise for real-life experiences. According to the Labour Party, every subject should be channelled towards helping students learn how to think creatively and solve problems using hands-on teaching techniques.

“This is not real transformation. It is fake transformation”, Mathunjwa said. “Now they want to criminalise parents while they cannot even feed all the children at schools. They want to make decisions about our schools, but they fail to deliver on their key mandate, which is to educate our children to create a better tomorrow”, Mathunjwa concluded.

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For more information or to arrange interviews, please send a request to media@labourparty.org.za.