By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s second largest party in the coalition government has said an education bill expected to be signed into law this week by President Cyril Ramaphosa threatens the unity government.
The passing of the legislation would violate the agreements and understandings that formed the basis of the government of national unity (GNU), DA leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The DA regards this issue in the most serious light, and I will convey to the President the destructive implications it holds for the future of the GNU,” he said.
Heritage Times HT recalls that DA entered into a coalition with Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) and other smaller parties after the ANC lost its parliamentary majority in a May election, despite strong ideological differences between the parties.
The disputed bill makes several changes to basic education laws in South Africa.
The clause that has caused the most controversy would strengthen government oversight over schools’ language and admission policies, touching on a sensitive debate about racial integration, which the white-dominated DA is uncomfortable with.
The ANC says some children are still excluded from schools on the account of language, which has been used as a proxy for race, and that the new legislation is believed to have capacity to address that.
The DA has defended the right of school governing bodies to decide their language policies, citing the right to mother-tongue education.
Although the bill does not name any specific language or group, some of its strongest opposition has come from South Africa’s white Afrikaans-speaking community, with interest group AfriForum saying it threatens the survival of Afrikaans schools.
The DA’s statement followed a presidency statement saying that Ramaphosa would sign into law the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) bill on Friday in a ceremony at the Union Buildings, the seat of government in the capital Pretoria.
