The sustainability of South Africa’s shaky governing coalition will be tested when President Cyril Ramaphosa signs new education measures into law at a public ceremony on Friday.
Before the general election in May, which saw Ramaphosa’s African National Congress form a coalition, the two main partners in the current government were at loggerheads over the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) bill.
Although the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA) now share power, there is still no agreement on the changes.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said that if the signing goes ahead, the party will have to “consider all our options for the future”.
What does Bela’s bill contain?
The controversial bill, passed by the previous ANC-dominated parliament just before the elections, proposes controversial and significant changes to the existing Education Act.
The main reforms are:
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Admission to schools and the language of instruction are regulated nationally
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Homeschooling is regulated
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Parents who fail to ensure their child goes to school can face prison sentences
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Class R, for four- and five-year-olds, will become the new compulsory starting level at school – one year earlier than is currently the case.
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The abolition of corporal punishment will be supported by fines and possibly prison sentences for those who administer it
The ANC says the changes are necessary to transform the education system and address persistent inequality.
Why is there so much opposition?
The clause that has caused the most controversy concerns strengthening government oversight of language and admissions policies.
This is a sensitive topic when it comes to racial integration.
The previous ANC government argued that language and other admission criteria were used to “hinder access to schools for the majority of learners”.
Although apartheid, a system of legally enforced racism, ended more than thirty years ago, the racial divide it created still exists in some areas of education.
Afrikaans is not specifically mentioned in the legislation, but the ANC says some children are being expelled from schools where the language of the white, Afrikaans minority is used as the medium of instruction.
The DA has defended the right of school boards to determine their own language policy, citing the constitution and the importance and protection of learning in the mother tongue.
The strongest opposition came from the Afrikaans-speaking community.
Civil rights group AfriForum has described the bill as an attack on Afrikaans education and has said it continues to oppose the legislation because “it threatens the survival of Afrikaans schools and quality education”.
The Freedom Front Plus – another of the 10 parties in the coalition government and seen as representing Afrikaner interests – also opposes Bela, calling it “ill-conceived” and saying it would “create unnecessary uncertainty and disputes over clearly established rights and responsibilities in relation to basic education”.
Some are also concerned about homeschooling reforms. There are currently many unregulated schools that are popular with the middle class because of the poor state of government schools.
These are allowed to continue through a loophole in the law where students are registered as “home students” and teachers offer “tutoring”. But through the Bela law, the government wants to close the loophole and ensure that they are regulated as state schools.
Could this pose a threat to the coalition government?
After the ANC lost its absolute majority in parliament, it needed coalition partners to stay in power.
The party reached an agreement with its old opponent, the DA, and eight other parties to form the Government of National Unity.
Steenhuisen, the Minister of Agriculture, has said that passing Bela’s bill would be contrary to “the letter and spirit” of the coalition agreement, as the DA had made it clear that the bill was unacceptable “in its current form”.
But it doesn’t look like he’s going to pull the plug on the coalition yet.
On Thursday, the DA leader said the policy dispute was not necessarily “an existential threat to the government,” echoing similar comments made by the president’s spokesman.
But Steenhuisen said that did not mean it would never walk away, especially if the ANC “was going to trash the constitution”. The DA has said it has a number of simple amendments to the bill that would make it acceptable and, as it sees it, in line with the constitution. However, these are not included in the bill signed by President Ramaphosa.
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