South Africa's coalition threatened by new education law

The durability of South Africa’s uneasy governing coalition is set to be tested as President Cyril Ramaphosa signs new education measures into law at a public ceremony on Friday.

Before May’s general election, the result of which forced Mr Ramaphosa’s African National Congress into a coalition, the two main partners in the current government were at loggerheads over the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill.

Even though the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA) now share power, there is still no agreement over the changes.

DA leader John Steenhuisen said that if the signing goes ahead, the party will “have to consider all of our options on the way forward”.

The disputed bill passed by the previous ANC-dominated parliament just before the election proposes controversial and significant amendments to existing education law.

The major reforms include:

• School admissions and the language of instruction will be regulated nationally
• Home schooling will be regulated
• Parents who fail to ensure their child is in school may face jail
• Grade R, for four and five-year-olds, will be the new compulsory school starting level – a year earlier than currently
• The abolition of corporal punishment will be backed by fines and possibly jail time for those who administer it

The ANC says the changes are necessary in order to transform the education system and address continued inequalities.

The clause which has caused the most controversy is the one concerning strengthening government oversight over language and admission policies.

This is a sensitive topic relating to racial integration.

The previous ANC government argued that language and other admission criteria were being used to “derail access to schools [for] the majority of learners”.

Even though apartheid – a system of legally enforced racism – ended more than three decades ago, the racial divide it created still persists in some areas of education.

Afrikaans is not specifically mentioned in the legislation, but the ANC says that some children are being excluded from schools where the language of the white-minority Afrikaners is used as the medium of instruction.

The DA has defended the right of school governing bodies to determine their language policies, citing the constitution and the importance and protection of learning in one's mother-tongue.

The strongest opposition has come from the Afrikaans-speaking community.

Civil rights group AfriForum has described the bill as an attack against Afrikaans education and has said it remains committed to opposing the legislation as “it poses a threat to the continued existence of Afrikaans schools and quality education”.

The Freedom Front Plus - another one of the 10 parties in the coalition government and seen as representing the interests of Afrikaners - is also opposed to Bela. It called it "ill-conceived", saying it would "cause needless uncertainty and disputes about clearly established rights and responsibilities related to Basic Education".

Some are also concerned about the reforms to home schooling. There are currently many unregulated schools popular with the middle classes because of the poor state of government schools.

These are allowed to continue through a loophole in the current law where the students are registered as “home learners” and the teachers offer “tuition”. But through the Bela bill, the government wants to close the loophole and ensure they are regulated like state schools.

After the ANC lost its outright majority in parliament, it needed coalition partners to remain in power.

It reached a deal with its long-time opponent, the DA, and several other parties to form the Government of National Unity.

Steenhuisen, who is the agriculture minister, has said that enacting the Bela bill would violate “the letter and spirit” of the coalition agreement as the DA had made it clear that the bill was unacceptable “in its current form”.

But he does not yet appear to be pulling the plug on the coalition.

On Thursday, the DA leader said conflict over policy was not necessarily “an existential threat to the government”, echoeing similar comments from the president’s spokesperson.

But Steenhuisen said this did not mean it would never walk away, especially if the ANC was “trashing the constitution”. The DA has said it has some simple amendments to the bill which would make it acceptable and, as it sees it, bring it in line with the constitution. However, these have not been incorporated in the bill signed by President Ramaphosa.