GOOD Statement by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General:
On this Youth Day, we remember the fearless students of 1976 who took to the streets of Soweto to demand dignity in education. Their protest was not simply about textbooks or classrooms, it was a protest for voice, identity, and the right to learn in a language that empowered them, not one imposed upon them by a regime of oppression.
Afrikaans was not just a language, it was the language of the Apartheid oppressor, enforced as a tool of domination in black schools. Young people refused to be silenced. They understood that language is not neutral. It shapes how we learn, how we see ourselves, and how we are seen by society.
Nearly 50 years later, the struggle for language justice in our schools is far from over.
Today, as we implement the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act, we take an important step forward. The Act does not erase any language. Rather, it seeks to open the doors of learning to more children, in more languages, by shifting the final say on school language policies from exclusive School Governing Bodies to provincial education departments, with necessary safeguards.
The BELA Act is about ensuring that no child is excluded from a quality education because of the language they speak at home. It is about confronting the stubborn spatial and social legacies of apartheid that still determine who gets to learn, and in what language.
Predictably, BELA’s detractors, like Solidarity and AfriForum, have twisted this effort to build a more inclusive education system into an imagined attack on Afrikaans. In truth, the Act protects all indigenous languages and ensures language policy serves learners and communities, not historical privilege.
Youth Day calls us to honour the courage of the past with courage in the present.
The BELA Act is not the end of the road, but it is a step toward fulfilling the promise of 1976 – a South Africa where education liberates rather than excludes. A South Africa where every child, regardless of race or language, has the right to learn and thrive.
We owe that to the youth of 1976.
We owe it to every child today.
Media enquiries: media@forgood.org.za
GOOD Manifesto on GOOD Governance: Upholding principles of GOOD governance.
Thrasher
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”
ThickSKN
How do I start a successful news site in South Africa?