BELA Bill will be detrimental to Afrikaans education, says AfriForum

JOHANNESBURG - Civil society organisation AfriForum says the signing into law of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill will be detrimental to Afrikaans education.

On Thursday, a small group of the organisation’s members held a picket outside the Basic Education Department offices in Pretoria to protest this bill. 

READ: NCOP expected to adopt BELA bill on Thursday

Gazetted in December 2021, the BELA Bill requires schools to get approval from the Provincial Department of Education on their language policies. 

The department would also be empowered to direct schools to have more than one language policy. 

AfriForum youth spokesperson Louis Boshoff said school governing bodies know what is best for the communities they are in. 

“Rather build more schools. If there is a community with a properly functioning Afrikaans medium school and there is lots of need for an English language school or an IsiZulu school or whatever, then the department should rather step in, build that new school, create that capacity instead of breaking down existing structures for Afrikaans education or whatever the languages in the area might be.”