BELA ACT: SCHOOL LANGUAGE, ADMISSION POLICY PROVISIONS ON HOLD

BELA ACT: SCHOOL LANGUAGE, ADMISSION POLICY PROVISIONS ON HOLD

• 13 September 2024
• Education & Training
• SA Legal Academy

Please note: The Act was gazetted on 16 September 2024. It is not yet in force – casting an entirely different light on the three months' grace allowed for parties to the Government of National Unity to resolve their differences on matters of school language and admission policy. Perhaps it would have been more prudent to allow that grace period to last as long as it takes the Department of Basic Education to prepare for the implementation of the Act's remaining provisions.

The Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill has been signed into law – but the implementation of its school language and admission policy provisions is on hold pending the outcome of further discussions. This is according to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech at the signing ceremony, when he announced that ‘parties to the Government of National Unity’ now have three months to ‘make proposals on how the(ir) different views may be accommodated’. Should no agreement be reached, the provisions concerned will be implemented as they now stand.

At the time of writing, the amendment Act had yet to be published. However, the final clause of the version of the Bill passed by Parliament in May 2024 clearly states that this new piece of legislation only ‘comes into operation on a date fixed by the President by proclamation in the Gazette’. This tends to suggest either that existing regulations may need to be amended or that new regulations may need to be drafted. That takes time.

Against that backdrop, references in the President’s speech to implementation are misleading. They tend to imply that the Act would have been in force in its entirety once signed and gazetted – and that, instead, all sections of the Act except those dealing with school language and admission policy are now in effect. If this is, in fact, the case, it will need to be proclaimed by notice in the Government Gazette.

SA Legal Academy Policy Watch will keep its readers informed of any further developments. Meanwhile, they are referred to the article below for more information on the new legislation.

• President’s speech
• BELA Bill’s ‘D’ version now signed into law
• SA Legal Academy article

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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