News24.com | Public hearings on Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill to be held in April

The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education is expected to resume its public hearings on the BELA Bill in late April.

• The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education will discuss measures to improve its public participation process for the BELA bill.
• This will happen in mid-April when Parliament returns from recess.
• This follows a request from ACDP MP Marie Sukers, who raised several concerns about the process.

The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education will only organise its public participation process for the controversial Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill next month when Parliament reconvenes after recess.

However, the public hearings are expected to resume towards the end of April. Last week, the committee halted the public participation process and postponed its public hearings in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

This came after ACDP MP Marie Sukers raised several issues, with her main concern being that parents' voices weren't heard. In a letter to the committee, Sukers requested a postponement of the hearings until after Easter.

"The main reason for this request is to allow the necessary time for staff to ensure that the hearings are well organised and inclusive, ultimately fostering a more effective public participation process," Sukers wrote. She said more than 3 000 people signed a petition to that effect.

"The normal procedures for public hearings were not followed due to the short-staffed public education office. This led to insufficient communication and a lack of proper arrangements for suitable venues, ultimately affecting the quality of public participation in the process," she wrote.

Sukers also proposed that additional venues be added in provincial capitals and major cities like Potchefstroom and Mbombela to cater to a broader audience and facilitate increased public participation.

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At Tuesday's committee meeting, the secretariat presented a proposed programme for the next term, which is expected to be discussed at the first meeting on 18 April.

According to the proposed programme, the committee will do public hearings in Gauteng from 28 April to 2 May, while the hearings in KwaZulu-Natal are provisionally scheduled for 11 to 15 May.

The proposed dates for hearings in the Western Cape are 25 to 29 May, while it will be the Northern Cape's turn from 1 to 5 June and the Eastern Cape's from 8 to 12 June.

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The BELA Bill was first drafted in 2017, but the current iteration was introduced to Parliament in 2022.

It is aimed at amending the South African Schools Act of 1996 and the Employment of Educators Act of 1998 to align them with developments in education and to ensure that the right to basic education enshrined in the Constitution is realised.

The bill has not been universally welcomed, and civil society groupings and political parties like the DA and ACDP have expressed concerns. The main areas of concern are the proposed provision giving provincial heads of education departments the power to make a final decision on a school's language and admissions policy, and the watering down of the role of school governing bodies.