BASIC EDUCATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL UPDATE

BASIC EDUCATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL UPDATE

• 16 August 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

PLEASE NOTE: According to a Business Day article published on 17 August 2023, committee support staff have been asked to explain possible discrepancies in a report on the public participation process. The article is electronically accessible only to Business Day subscribers.

Five recent media statements and a Business Day article on the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill have drawn attention to fundamental disagreements between ruling and opposition party MPs not only about the Bill’s contents but also about the parliamentary process itself.

Tabled in January 2022, according to a memorandum on the Bill’s overarching objects it seeks to:

• align the South African Schools Act, 1996, and the Employment of Educators Act, 1998, with ‘developments in the education landscape’, and
• ‘ensure that systems of learning and excellence in education are put in place in a manner which respects, protects, promotes and fulfils the right to basic education enshrined in section 29(1) of the Constitution’ 

In that context, among other things the Bill has significant implications for:

• determining the language policy of a state school
• school governing body accountability
• compulsory schooling (which it is proposed should be extended to include Grade R), and
• regulatory matters affecting home schooling.

The National Assembly’s Basic Education Committee held parliamentary hearings on the Bill in November 2022, since when it has been the focus of a nationwide public participation process.

During the past 20 months, the DA’s Baxolile Nodada has issued a plethora of media statements on his party’s concerns about the Bill’s contents. Most recently, however, Nodada’s focus has shifted to what are perceived to have been shortcomings in analysing written submissions on the Bill. As a result, the accuracy of a committee report on its public participation process is now being questioned.

It is against that backdrop that, on 15 August 2023, opposition party representatives in the committee walked out of a meeting at which the report was to have been adopted.

Please click the links below for more insight into opposition party concerns, the committee chair’s response to events on 15 August 2023 and related information.

• Bill
• committee media statement
• ANC parliamentary caucus study group media statement
• DA statement (1)
• DA statement (2)
• Business Day article (subscriber access only)

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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