IRR Legal proposes BELA solution

IRR Legal proposes BELA solution

IRR Legal has written to the Presidency and to Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube to propose a solution to the impasse over clauses four and five of the Basic Education Law Amendment (BELA) Act.

IRR Legal has written to the Presidency and to Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube to propose a solution to the impasse over clauses four and five of the Basic Education Law Amendment (BELA) Act.

The proposed solution has three parts:

  • The state builds an additional 13,000 classrooms beyond what is currently planned in public schools across the country;
  • Concurrently, Minister Gwarube empanels experts to study why South Africa has the world’s worst education system on a value-for-money basis, and
  • Relevant parties commit to investigating and terminating any cases where language policy is used for a racially exclusive purpose.

Taking these steps while clauses four and five remain suspended is a solution that is both credible and that “everyone” can “buy into”, as desired by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

More Classrooms

Classrooms are a limiting factor to learning in South Africa’s public schools. In the last two decades major investments were necessary to connect 15,263 schools with electricity, 8,823 with water, and 3,265 with toilets, according to official reports to Parliament. 

These accomplishments are impressive. However, consolidation of infrastructure quality has come in part through shrinking the quantity of public schools from 26,789 in 2000 to 22,511 in 2023, a 16% reduction.

While more needs to be done to replace pit latrines at public schools, it is concurrently necessary to move on from consolidating public school infrastructure to growing public school infrastructure with speed.

Last year the Department of Basic Education’s Head of Infrastructure, David van der Westhuizen, said that South Africa needed “somewhere between 35,000 and 70,000 classrooms”.

On the other hand, there were only 1,261 Afrikaans (single medium) schools in the latest official report of 2020, which is roughly 5.5% of total public schools. BELA sponsors repeatedly alleged that a key purpose of the controversial BELA clauses that make it easier for government officials to rewrite public school language and admissions policies was to address the deficit of classrooms in previously disadvantaged schools by forcing Afrikaans schools to become dual medium.

Adding 13,000 classrooms would mean adding ten times more classrooms than the total number of Afrikaans schools. Building new classrooms, rather than turning Afrikaans classrooms into English classrooms, is a solution that everyone who has the best interest of children on their minds can buy into.

Using previous data released by the Department of Basic Education, it is estimated that 13,000 classrooms can be built for R17 billion, which ought to be provided in a revenue-neutral manner.

Empanelled Experts

In the 2010s, South Africa was reported to have the “world’s worst” public school system on a value-for-money basis. Since then, results have gotten worse, as 81% of grade 4s were found to be functionally illiterate, according to the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) report, ranking South Africa as the worst country on record.

On the other hand, a 2023 report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise indicated that South African teachers "are well paid in comparison with their peers in richer countries, earning on average R42,700 per month before tax, including benefits". Stats SA data indicate that this places the average teacher comfortably within the top 3% of income earners.

So why such bad results? World record high levels of teacher absenteeism are just one indication of bad management. The documentation attached to BELA in Parliament reveals a knowledge gap through root-cause analysis of the country’s shocking public school failures.

The inclusion of international experts from regions or countries that have managed to get much better results than South Africa’s public school system while spending much less per student, including India and Nigeria, is vital to explain what practical solutions can be implemented.

Non-Racialism

According to the Constitution, “the state must consider all reasonable educational alternatives, including single medium institutions”, and according to a majority judgment of the Constitutional Court, when single language schools are already functioning “the state bears the negative duty not to take away or diminish the right” to education in that language “without appropriate justification”.

Of heightened relevance to the BELA controversy, the state has a duty not to take away or diminish the right to learn in Afrikaans at existing Afrikaans schools. All workable solutions are guard-railed by that legal fact.

On the other hand, no entity, including a school, may deliberately use language as a mechanism for racial exclusion. If individuals conspire to change any school policy with the explicit purpose of racial exclusivity in admissions, this conduct is unlawful and antisocial.

All parties should be eager to show common purpose by pledging not to use language as a racial proxy, while the state takes the practical steps of growing public schools by 13,000 classrooms and analysing the root cause of failure from solutions-oriented experts with proven track records of improving literacy and numeracy for hundreds of millions of children around the world.

Media contact: Gabriel Crouse, IRR Legal Executive Director Tel: 082 510 0360 Email: gabriel@irrlegal.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za