Three-month delay for implementation of Bela Bill but legal action still considered – Theuns Eloff
President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the contentious Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela Bill) into law, which proposes various amendments, including giving provincial Heads of Departments greater control over schools' language and admission policies. The Bill removes some decision-making powers from school governing bodies and is seen as a direct attack on schools that teach in Afrikaans. In an interview with BizNews, Theuns Eloff, chairperson of the Trust for Afrikaans Education (Trust vir Afrikaans Onderwys), said that Ramaphosa has, however, agreed to delay the implementation of two specific sections of the legislation—Sections 4 and 5—for three months to allow for further consultation. Eloff criticised the Bela Bill as a scapegoat for the government's shortcomings, highlighting that the real issue lies in the lack of newly built schools to meet the needs of a growing population in Gauteng. He noted that Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi promised to construct 40 schools during his first term, but only four have been completed. Eloff also expressed discontent with the Gauteng Education Department's approach, which has involved sending officials to schools to measure up classrooms and instructing principals to increase the enrolment of non-Afrikaans speakers. He said failure to reach an agreement could result in a prolonged legal battle, potentially leading to court cases that could take five years to reach the Constitutional Court.
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Highlights from the interview
In a recent interview with Linda van Tilburg, Theuns Eloff, Chairman of the Trust for Afrikaans Education, discussed the implications of President Cyril Ramaphosa's signing of the controversial Bella legislation. Eloff acknowledged that while 95% of the bill contains necessary governance changes, the contentious Sections 4 and 5 undermine the authority of school governing bodies—primarily composed of parents—by shifting decision-making power to provincial education department heads. This shift raises concerns among the Afrikaans community, particularly regarding admissions and language policies.
Eloff emphasized that the legislation could lead to significant changes in Afrikaans schools, which are already facing pressure from the government to accommodate non-Afrikaans speakers due to a shortage of new schools in Gauteng. He noted that the Afrikaans community largely opposes the bill, with around 89% expressing discontent in consultations.
Despite these concerns, Ramaphosa has indicated that Sections 4 and 5 will be implemented after a three-month period of discussions between the government and the Afrikaans community. Eloff expressed hope for a constructive dialogue but warned that if a reasonable solution isn't reached, legal action will be pursued. He criticized the government's handling of school infrastructure and the perceived scapegoating of Afrikaans schools for broader educational failures. Ultimately, Eloff stressed the importance of cooperative governance to ensure fair treatment and maintain mother-tongue education.
Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Linda van Tilburg (00:57)
I'm Linda van Tilburg for BizNews.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the controversial Bella legislation, which has raised red lights for the Afrikaans speaking community regarding its impact on their school and who better to discuss that with than Theuns Eloff who is the Chairman of the Trust for Afrikaans Education. President Ramaphosa has now signed the legislation, is that it?
Theuns Eloff (01:24)
This has been a long time coming. I think this bill was first aired just after or before COVID. Let me say that 95% of the bill consists of good and necessary administrative governance changes. One should immediately say that if you're opposed to the bill, you're not opposed to the entire bill; you're opposed to two specific controversial sections. I must add that some in the homeschooling community have problems with one or two other things. For the Afrikaans community and the school governing body community, Sections 4 and 5 take away the power of school governing bodies—mostly consisting of parents—to determine the admissions policy and the language policy of a school. We need not go into all the details, but it boils down to the fact that those powers are now largely with the head of the department in a province.
Theuns Eloff 02:43
So, the head of the education department, which is an official, must do a few things. He must consult. But it's important to distinguish between "in consultation" and "after consultation." "After consultation" means I speak to you and then do what I want. "In consultation" means I must convince you, or we must come to an agreement, and only then can I proceed. That is "after consultation."
One of the other things stated is that the head of department can take into account the needs of the broader district community, which is very broad, and can decide that the school should have another language of tuition or that two schools should merge. So, it's very far-reaching and the reason why this has come about is mostly from our good friend, Mr. Lesufi, when he was MEC of Education Gauteng.
The fact is that the ANC has dropped the ball in building new schools for a growing population in Gauteng. Many people continue to urbanise in Gauteng. Lesufi, for instance, promised in his first term to build 40 schools but built only four, of which one is still standing empty. Now they are looking to the Afrikaans schools for solutions.
Most Afrikaans schools are full to the brim, But even within that, there's a problem. In the last two weeks, officials of the Gauteng department not only had meetings where they directed principals to bring in non-Afrikaans speakers, but they also arrived at a few schools and started measuring classrooms to say, well, we think if you work with one square meter per child, you can have 40.
Now, health and safety regulations say one meter per child is not enough because you have to be able to move. So, it's totally irresponsible to force the Afrikaans schools to seek a solution and then they try to push it on to the Afrikaans schools.
Theuns Eloff (05:20)
Now often people say that it is selfish of the Afrikaans community; we must share. The point is: we've seen that the moment a single medium school in terms of section 29.2 of the Constitution becomes double or parallel medium, it takes an average of five years for it to become English. That's just the way it is. It's a language phenomenon all over the world. If you look at Canada, French-speaking schools often face the same fate. So, we now have, 4% of schools. We now we have 980. In five years, we've lost almost 400 schools because of this dynamic.
So, what happened is that there was a process for the bill and it was attended by literally tens of thousands of people of the Afrikaans-speaking community, both white and coloured, and they were largely against it. I mean, 88, 89%.
Despite that, last year, or just before the election, the department said that it should be signed. The president then didn't sign it before the election. I don't know why, but then the pressure mounted and the last three weeks we heard there were signs that he would sign it. There was a lot of hope on the influence of the new DA Minister of Basic Education, Minister Siviwe Gwarube. But about ten days ago, she said it was the president's responsibility, and she couldn't do anything more. It became clear that it was going to be signed.
From the Afrikaans community we decided to have a media conference where Solidarity AfriForum, Afrikaans Education Network and others said that we will then go to court because we believe that the bill is unconstitutional as it nullifies the whole of section 29 of the Constitution.
I should mention to viewers that with national government, provincial government, and local government, there's a principle called cooperative governance. So, each of those three tiers of government have a responsibility, and national government can't tell local government what they should or can't do. They have certain constitutional responsibilities. The same triangle exists between the National Department of Education, the Provincial Department of Education and the school governing body at local level and this bill will draw a line through that triangle of co-governance and we believe that's unconstitutional.
Theuns Eloff (08:18)
So, what happened is that obviously the DA also spoke and the Freedom Front spoke to the President about this and said that this will, as people will have seen, this will bring into jeopardy the whole existence of the GNU. What happened is that John Steenhuisen then asked the President to phone Afriforum and Solidariteit, Dirk Herman and Kallie Kriel, and he did so on Thursday morning and Thursday evening and they implored him not to sign it and he said, well, my constitutional advisors tell me there's nothing unconstitutional about it, I must sign it. They then said, but we don't think they're right but let us have a chance to engage with them and see whether we can't find a consensus.
The long and short of it is that he said that he will sign the bill, but he will keep the implementation of sections 4 and 5 out of implementation for three months and there will now be discussions, which I would imagine, at the level of the cabinet, but more importantly, I think, between the Afrikaans community and the ANC.
Obviously, we've got Lesufi on that side, but there are also people like David Makhura who have a much more open view about this and his view is basically: who can fight against mother tongue education if we know it's better and you want that? So, let's find a way in which this is possible without making it more difficult.
The government has not fulfilled their responsibility to build new schools for more kids and learners. They're now trying to hide their own mistakes, behind by taking those kids to Afrikaans schools. They will talk a lot about transformation and the lack of transformation and I can say this now. No Afrikaans single medium school, at least at high school level, has only white learners anymore. They all have a number of African learners who wish or are willing to be taught in Afrikaans. They like the discipline of the Afrikaans schools. So, it's not about racism. It's not about exclusion. It's about the government looking for a scapegoat for their own failures.
Linda van Tilburg (10:00)
So, would you give this three months and then still consider you know going to the courts if that doesn't succeed?
Theuns Eloff (10:17)
The president sort of made what was interpreted as a bit of a threat to say that I give you three months but for only three months, then it's not going to work.
Hopefully, the wise thing here is to say, can we formulate in a different way? It's being formulated such that a school must take the government to court. Now that can't be right. It must be written in such a way that if a school doesn't want to adhere to a reasonable policy and if a school is half full, it can't say, "I want to stay Afrikaans." We accept that. That's immoral. But if a school is full to capacity—there are Afrikaans schools like that were built for 1,700 kids but now have 2,500 learners—then there must be a way for the government to take that school to court, not the other way around.
If we could, for instance, just say that all of the provisions currently in the bill must be done in consultation with the school governing body, this may lead to a more reasonable outcome. If they still prove unreasonable, then they can take them to court.
Theuns Eloff (12:37)
That's not the way to have good will. So, I think what will happen is we'll try our best to find a solution. But if not, then obviously this will go to court. The Democratic Alliance (DA) said that it would also go to court. I would think that at least the AfriForum, Solidarity Grouping as well as the South African Teachers Union will be involved. So, there would probably be at least three or four court cases about this and this could be tied up in court for five years before it gets to the Constitutional Court.
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