A short-lived peace
After several years of silence, the threat erupted again in 2017 when the Basic Education Laws
Amendment bill was published for public comment.
This bill—a version of which has now been signed into law—radically transforms education
from being largely controlled by parents to being regulated in the finest detail by the state.
The provincial policy was localized, but the BELA bill represents a nationwide threat to every
homeschool in the country.
The BELA bill contains a clause on home education that is a rehashed version of the 2014
WCED policy—this time enforced by a penalty of six years in jail. Most importantly, the bill puts
the necessary foundations in place to make home education impossible over time. Rather than
make home education outright illegal, the bill borrows a tactic from other countries opposed to homeschooling: Make it so highly regulated, impractical, and onerous that homeschooling is
effectively impossible and undesirable.
Now that the BELA bill has been signed by the president, South Africa joins countries such as
Germany and Sweden in their open animosity toward and regulation of home educators.
Home educators plead their case
The BELA bill was handled by the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education (PCBE) in parliament,
which uses a committee structure similar to that of the US government. The committee decided
to allow extensive public participation in the BELA bill, since it was highly contested.
When the PCBE requested written submissions from the public during the first round
of public participation, home educators sent more than 5,000 letters opposing the bill.
During the second round, organizations were invited to give oral presentations. Due to the
volume of submissions received from home educators, four of the 32 organizations invited
were homeschool organizations. HSLDA was invited to participate and provided testimony
before the South African Parliament on home education and international law, giving strong
support and justification for homeschooling from our US experience and international
expertise.
After thousands of letters, the continuous pressure of the Pestalozzi Trust, and a campaign
aimed at the provincial ministers in 2021, the national minister submitted a new version of the
BELA bill to parliament in 2022. Sadly, the bill was essentially the same, with the only notable
changes being a pre-registration home visit requirement and the enforcement penalty reduced
from six years of jail to one year. Hardly something to get excited about.
The PCBE continued the last round of public comment with hearings at 18 locations all over
the country. A total of 389 home educators presented objections at these hearings, participating
in all but two of them. Despite home education making up only 1-2 percent of the school sector,
homeschooling parents gave more than 24 percent of the presentations.
Ironically, it was in the Western Cape—the province where these negative homeschool clauses
had their origin—that home educators dominated the meetings. A significant number of homeschooling families gave presentations, more than school representatives and teachers.
Simply put, home educating families came out in droves to stand up for the rights of their
children. This is a result that nobody expected.
The committee ignores homeschool input
Sadly, the PCBE effectively rejected massive input from the home education community. For
South Africans, this was not the first time. In 2007, previous amendments to an education law were
passed through both houses within three short months, after a period of public participation.
During debate in the national assembly in 2007, Honorable D. van der Walt of the Democratic
Alliance party made the following statement:
The legal and philosophical opposition to this bill was largely ignored or denied. Whereas
the committee debated a whole series of technical alterations, these amendments totally
ignored the substantial matters. In other words, the public participation process was a farce.
The Minister knew what she wanted, and the committee obliged.
The PCBE has handled the current BELA bill similarly: It has ignored public comment.
A perfunctory field trip
As part of the public comment process, the PCBE visited another country for an outside perspective. Rather than traveling to the United States at HSLDA’s invitation to see the success of decades
of homeschooling freedom, the PCBE visited Finland. During their visit, five members of the PCBE
met with representatives of the Finnish homeschool community.
Part of the meeting focused on homeschooling in the Åland Islands, a semi-autonomous region
of Finland, where most homeschooling families are refugees from Sweden. Sweden does not tolerate homeschooling, while it is constitutionally protected in Finland. The discussion focused on the
nations’ opposing approaches.
The PCBE heard stories of Swedish families who fled their home country for Finland, motivated
by nothing more than love for their children and a desire to educate them at home.
While the PCBE expressed openness and genuine interest in homeschooling, they made no substantive positive changes or recommendations to the BELA bill. As with the 2007 education law
change, the visit appears to have been merely perfunctory.
A loss for homeschool freedom
And perfunctory it was. While the BELA bill is a significant setback, it is by no means the end of
homeschooling in South Africa. The Pestalozzi Trust and other advocates will continue to push for
homeschool freedom. This comes in the midst of political tumult, as the African National Congress
recently lost its 30-year majority rule and has now formed a coalition government.
HSLDA stands by the Pestalozzi Trust and the homeschool community in South Africa, and will
continue to aid them in this fight. This situation in South Africa underscores how important it is for
the homeschool community to stay vigilant and unite around the cause of homeschool freedom.
Photo courtesy of Juhani Paavolainen with Finnish Home Educators Association.
