SADTU STATEMENT ON THE BASIC EDUCATION MINISTER’S INTENTION TO HAVE THE BELA BILL REFERRED BACK TO PARLIAMENT
17 July 2024
SADTU calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to sign the Bela Bill into an Act without any delay.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) has noted the statements of the Democratic Alliance Minister of Basic Education that she will ask President Cyril Ramaphosa to refer the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (BELA Bill) back to Parliament.
The Bela Bill was passed, with a resounding majority, by the democratically elected National Assembly and approved by the National Council of Provinces in the last term. It is a matter of public record that the DA opposed the BELA Bill from the very outset in pursuit of its anti-transformation agenda.
It took almost 10 years of intensive and extensive consultations, public consultation processes, and all the parliamentary processes – from the National Assembly to the National Council of Provinces and back, to arrive at the current text of the BELA Bill. The DA participated in these engagements and was defeated by the will of the majority who wanted transformation and change in basic education to realise the foundational values of our Constitution of equity, redress, and access to basic education.
The BELA Bill represents the collective will and desire of the majority to transform our basic education system from an apartheid design to a democratic value-based system. The DA Minister is adopting an approach which undermines the foundational values of our constitution. We strongly condemn her behaviour of playing to the gallery by making serious public announcements without engaging key stakeholders first. We wish to remind her that she is now minister and should behave as such.
The DA manifesto does not and cannot supersede the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The Minister must also be reminded that the DA alone does not have the power to unilaterally change policy outside of the prescribed legal framework. We encourage the DA and its Ministers to operate within the agreed framework and avoid putting their self-interest above those of the country.
The DA’s main objection to the BELA Bill is calculated at retaining privileges conferred by the apartheid system on the minority of the population. The BELA Bill, as it stands, seeks to ensure amongst others equality of the many official languages and to address the historical injustice of forcing those learners whose mother tongue is neither Afrikaans nor English to study in these languages. This is intended to undermine the introduction of Mother Tongue Based Education which is meant to benefit the majority of learners in our country.
The DA also wishes to retain the status quo where School Governing Bodies of previously exclusive schools keep the power to continue excluding learners from other national groups using issues such as the language policy, anti-transformative admission policies and employment practices which continue to discriminate.
The DA Minister must not threaten South Africans with unfounded assertions that the BELA Bill may be unconstitutional and threats of litigation. Over the 30 years of our constitutional democracy, the Constitutional Court has clarified the circumstances under which legislation may be declared unconstitutional and made order to remedy any declaration of invalidity.
SADTU will vigorously oppose and challenge any attempt to reverse the gains of 30 years of democracy. The DA minister must be reminded that the elections are over, and her party is now part of the government and must behave accordingly.
SADTU is therefore calling upon the President to sign the BELA Bill into law without any delay.
“Mr President, please sign the Bill because it is a product of a democratic process as provided for in the Constitution. Failure to sign this Bill will suggest that the transformation of our society through education is held to ransom by the minority that still owns our land and wealth. The 30 years of a democratic government has taught us that the beneficiaries of colonial apartheid have actually refused land redistribution and all transformation policies of redress and equity,” said SADTU General Secretary, Dr Mugwena Maluleke.
ISSUED BY: SADTU Secretariat