Bela Act dispute by Solidarity settled with basic education minister

Trade union Solidarity reached a settlement with the basic education minister and the presidency at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) over the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act this week.  

On October 1, Solidarity initiated a dispute process through Nedlac to seek authorisation to undertake a protected protest to express opposition to sections 4 and 5 of the act.

The sections, whose implementation President Cyril Ramaphosa delayed when he signed the Bela Act into law three months ago, deal with language and admission policies at public schools.

Basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube and the presidency were cited as respondents. 

After weeks of Nedlac consultations, a settlement agreement was reached on Wednesday.

Gwarube said the parties had reached reached an understanding about how concerns relating to sections 4 and 5 may be addressed. "This validates my long-held view that dialogue is the best remedy for conflict resolution,” Gwarube said. 

She said in terms of the settlement agreement, she will make recommendations to Ramaphosa on commencement arrangements for the act, recommending the sections be commenced once national policies, norms, standards and regulations had been made to support the implementation of the sections. 

She said the policies, norms, standards and regulations to be developed must provide greater legal clarity on the factors to be considered and more comprehensive consultation mechanisms that needed to be followed in relation to three decision-making processes. 

These are:

• the decision by the head of a provincial education department to depart from the admission policy determined by a school governing body (SGB) for a public school, and;
• the decision by the department head to direct a public school to add an additional language of instruction and to request an SGB to review its admission policy or language policy. 

Gwarube said the recommendations she would make were informed, among others, by the need to protect and preserve the careful balance of powers and functions of the national government, provincial governments and public schools represented through their SGBs, and the constitutional right of every pupil to be taught in their mother tongue where this was reasonably practicable, taking into account considerations of practicability, equity and redress. 

Dr Dirk Hermann, Solidarity’s CEO, said though the settlement was a major breakthrough, further hard work lay ahead.  

“The important breakthrough is that we again have time on our side where Afrikaans schools that are full to capacity will not receive instructions about language and admission.” 

Hermann said there would be tough talks about norms and standards and Solidarity would propose possible legislative amendments.  

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