The Federation of Governing Bodies of SA Schools (Fedsas) has rejected a contentious clause that seeks to limit a governing body’s power to determine a school’s admission policy.
Fedsas CEO Jaco Deacon made an oral submission during the second round of hearings on the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill in parliament on Tuesday.
According to the proposed clause, the head of department of a provincial education department, after consultation with the governing body, has the “final authority” to admit a pupil to a public school.
Deacon said the proposal of “final authority” conflicts with the co-operative partnership between the governing body, the head of department and the minister as envisioned by the SA Schools’ Act (Sasa).
“The notion of a co-operative partnership as envisioned and prescribed in the constitution is undermined by giving the head of department the ‘final authority’.”
The bill proposes to amend the SA Schools Act and Employment of Educators Act, “to align them with developments in the education landscape”.
Some of the other organisations that made presentations were the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), Section27, Centre for Child Law, AfriForum and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
Sadtu, which tabled its submission on behalf of 264,000 members, said the amendment proposing that compulsory attendance start at grade R instead of grade one was “long overdue”.
It recommended the retention of the current provisions in Sasa that parents and guardians face imprisonment of six months for failing to send their children to school.
The amendment proposes that the term of imprisonment be extended to 12 months.
The teacher union said it is not clear why concrete proposals are not made in the bill to ensure access for pupils from previously disadvantaged backgrounds by addressing both the financial and admission policy constraints.
The Centre for Child Law proposed that the definition of corporal punishment be expanded to include other non-physical forms of punishment that are also cruel and degrading, such as emotional and verbal abuse. These could include, for example, punishment which belittles, humiliates, denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares, or ridicules the child.
The bill should be revised comprehensively, as some of the proposed amendments oppose the core principles of the Sasa. These amendments run the risk of being declared constitutionally unlawful if they were to be adopted.
— AfriForum’s Alana Bailey
AfriForum’s Alana Bailey, who made a submission on behalf of 309,600 members, said the bill should be “revised comprehensively”, as some of the proposed amendments “oppose the core principles of the Sasa”.
“These amendments run the risk of being declared constitutionally unlawful if they were to be adopted.”
She said there was no reason a head of department has to approve an admission policy determined by a governing body.
“AfriForum opposes state control of this nature, especially where a democratically elected community representative body (the governing body) already exists. Transferring this duty to the head of department will undermine the entire purpose, objective and scheme of Sasa.”
Bailey said the governing body was the most appropriate stakeholder to determine its school’s admission policy, “based on its grassroots-level knowledge of the community and the circumstances of the school”.
“Forcing single-medium schools to accommodate more languages of instruction is no solution. Mother-language instruction is the best form of education, therefore the displacement of any indigenous SA language by a dominant international language (English), is not in the interests of any South African.”
Bailey said the amendments, specifically those concerning the admission and language policies, in AfriForum’s opinion “amount to a calculated attack on Afrikaans education, while offering no relief to the speakers of other indigenous languages”.
Cosatu said it was concerned that the government did not extend compulsory schooling from grade R until the end of grade 12. At the moment, compulsory schooling starts at grade one and ends at grade nine or age 15, whichever comes first.
Faranaaz Veriava, head of education at public interest law centre, Section27, said they supported the proposed amendments to the admission and language policies and “the necessity of such policies being approved by the head of department to ensure constitutional compliance”.
“We submit that the autonomy of governing bodies is maintained by governing bodies continuing to develop their own policies and by having a right of appeal.
“We are, however, concerned by the potential capacity constraints of the head of department that may result in unlawful and unconstitutional policies.”
Veriava said they recommended that an office, specialising in reviewing school policies, be established in terms of Bela under the auspices of the head of department.
She said a well-functioning complaints mechanism needs to be established for interested parties to challenge school policies that they believe are exclusionary, unlawful or unconstitutional.
Veriava said their support for making grade R compulsory “is conditional on it being appropriately resourced, play-based learning being emphasised and that there is adequate training and wages for ECD [early childhood development] practitioners”.
“There is a need for specific emphasis on age-appropriate play material and equipment in light of the introduction of compulsory grade R.”
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