Gauteng rejects BELA Bill – public participation hearings to continue in Mpumalanga today

Dear Editor

The DA is encouraged by the turn-out to this past weekend’s public participation hearings in Gauteng and the level of engagement from participants.

It seemed that the majority of participants share the DA’s concerns regarding the Bill, particularly the so-called ‘Lesufi-clauses’ which seeks to put power in the hands of the department and the minister, taking away school governing bodies’ (SGBs) powers and right to determine their school’s admission and language policies.

The bill ignores home schooling concerns, and does not address the real issues in schools such as crumbling infrastructure, dropout rates and poor-quality teaching. While completely missing an opportunity to legislate online learning. We believe that these clauses could be used to target schools that use mother tongues as language of instruction, particularly single medium schools.

The DA will do everything in our power to stop this draconian Bill from being pushed through Parliament and centralising power – as was experienced by millions of children in KwaZulu-Natal, the centralisation of power can lead to failure on a massive scale with debilitating repercussions on all but government.

We encourage parents, educators, community members and stakeholders to attend the public hearings this afternoon in Secunda (please see below for more details).

The children of South Africa deserve the best possible future, not one where a power-hungry Department decides their fate based on flawed ideology.

Public hearing meeting this afternoon:

Province: Mpumalanga
District: Gert Sibande District
Town: Secunda
Municipality: Govan Mbeki Local Municipality
Venue: Sasol Community Recreation Centre (2287 Ingwe Dr, Embalenhle)
Date: Monday, 8 May 2023
Time: 12:00 – 16:00

Regards

Baxolile ‘Bax’ Nodada MP
DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education