South Africa’s parliament has approved a new education law known as the Basic Education Laws Amendment, or Bela.
This law is a big change for education in the country.
One of the important changes is that parents might go to jail if their kids don’t go to school.
The Bela law says parents could be put in jail for up to one year if their children skip school or are not enrolled when they should be.
This means it’s essential for parents to make sure their kids go to school.
Bela also makes it illegal for teachers to use physical punishment in any school.
This is a significant change that aims to protect students from physical harm.
This law is the most significant change in education since apartheid ended in 1994.
The African National Congress (ANC), which is the ruling political party, believes this law will help make education better by addressing the challenges we face now and those from the past.
But not everyone is happy about it.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), the biggest opposition party, disagrees with the law.
They think it gives too much power to the government when it comes to schools.
The DA also worries that this law could make education worse.
The DA believes the Bela law doesn’t help schools, parents, or communities deal with the problems that affect the quality of education.
They even protested during the vote on this law.
They say they might take the government to court over it.
The ANC has a lot of support in parliament, and most members of parliament agreed with the Bela law. Only a few MPs were against it.
An education expert, Mary Metcalf, agrees with the idea that parents should be responsible for sending their kids to school.
She thinks it’s the minimum requirement for being a parent.
Another point of disagreement is about the language that schools use for teaching.
The Bela law makes schools give their language policies to the government.
These policies must meet the needs of the larger community.
If they don’t, schools have to change their policies.
Some people are concerned that this change will affect Afrikaans-speaking communities.
The ANC argues that schools have used language policies to keep certain students out.
They want to change this.
In the past, during the time when a minority of white people ruled the country, students had to learn in Afrikaans, which was seen as the language of the apartheid government.
This caused a lot of protests, such as the 1976 Soweto Uprising.
Experts say South Africa’s education system has big problems.
In 2021, it ranked last out of 57 countries when it came to testing how well students could read.
A recent study found that eight out of ten South African kids struggle with reading by the time they turn ten.
This means there’s a lot of work to do to make education better in South Africa.
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