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BELA ACT TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN ITS ENTIRETY
- 23 December 2024
- New Legislation
- SA Legal Academy
Please note: A presidential proclamation gazetted on 24 December 2024 confirmed that the entire Act is to be implemented retrospectively, commencing 20 December 2024.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has issued a media statement announcing that the controversial Basic Education Laws Amendment Act will be implemented as it now stands. A presidential proclamation to that effect is expected to be gazetted soon.
Backdated to 20 December 2024, the statement notes that, following a presidentially prescribed three-month Government of National Unity (GNU) clearing house mechanism process intended to find a way forward in the context of the Act’s most contentious sections:
- ‘participants (in that process eventually) agreed that the Act be fully implemented’ and reported to the President accordingly
- as a result, parties to the GNU have agreed that Act ‘should not be sent back to Parliament to make changes to the sections that were in contention’
- ‘this view was endorsed by the leaders of the parties to the GNU’ in a meeting held on 20 December 2024, and
- the Act’s implementation is expected to fulfil the constitutionally enshrined right of every child in South Africa ‘to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice where reasonably practicable’.
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has therefore been instructed to:
- ‘see to the full implementation of the BELA Act’, and
- ‘to do what is necessary, as is customary with any law, to ensure that the timeframe of implementation – particularly with regard to the preparedness of the system for universal Grade R access – and the consequential regulations setting out the norms and standards are prepared’.
It is not yet clear the implementation of certain sections of the Act will be phased in over time.
- presidential media statement
- Act
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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