What is wrong with the BELA Bill?
There are several issues with it, notably it's based on sloppy data
The South African Government of National Unity is a coalition government and as with several coalitions, it can only work if both parties are prepared to manage the potential conflicts that can risk it splitting apart and steer away from provocations. One major potential issue of conflict is the newly proposed BELA Bill that has a series of significant flaws, and that is based on a lack of historical context. One can only wonder how such nonsense can get so far.
One such source of conflict is on the issue of language. I am in a unique position to give some kind of informed opinion on the proposed amendments, because when I was at the University of Pretoria’s Student Representative Council I had the portfolio Multilingualism and Culture. During that year I spent many hours reading into the history of this contentious issue and to understand why language was emotional. I am a polyglot who is fluent in 4 languages and conversant in 2 others.
The issue of language has always been contentious in South Africa and it shifted depending on who was in power. For example, during the Soweto Riots, the Afrikaans language was imposed onto black students, resulting in the 1976 student protests that notably saw the Apartheid Regime kill school students when they mandated the imposition of an Afrikaans based curriculum. When Andries Treurnich, the minister who imposed it was asked in parliament if he consulted the black students, his response was “no I didn’t and I am not going to”.
There is another aspect of this history, which is even less spoken in public. Almost more than 100 years ago with the introduction of the Milner Schools, there was an active attempt by Great Britain to impose English only medium schools in South Africa. The assault on Dutch (that later evolved into Kitchen Dutch and Afrikaans) was the key issue that Afrikaner Nationalists mobilized around before they took over power in South Africa in 1948.
At Milner schools, Afrikaner children were not allowed to speak their language - Dutch. Any child heard speaking Dutch on school grounds would be made to stand in front of the class to chant: "I am a monkey, I spoke Dutch."
This experience - of forced anglicisation - galvanised Afrikaners, and deepened their nationalistic fervour. They vowed to build their own schools, and to make their children appreciate and love their language.
Language plays just as important a role in shaping national identity as racial discourse does and is a government seeks to impose a De Facto ban on Afrikaans schools then it is going to provoke internal divisions.
In 2001, Afrikaans was identified by Thabo Mbeki’s’s Government as a source of conflict in South Africa. He constituted the Gerwel Commission who was headed by Jakes Gerwel, a South African and anti apartheid activists who wrote mostly in Afrikaans.
Gerwel Identified language as a source of conflict and made several propositions to the SA Government.
“In 2001 the Mbeki government appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Jakes Gerwel to investigate the matter. It recommended that Afrikaans as a medium of instruction had to be guaranteed at least two institutions. There had to be statutory obligation on them to promote Afrikaans “systematically” and conscientiously” as a medium of scientific research and public communication. There had to report annually to Parliament. Unfortunately the Afrikaans vice chancellors wasted this opportunity.”
It is worth noting that President Thabo Mbeki was prepared to implement several of the recommended reforms, but the Afrikaans vice-chancellors could not agree on which two universities, one in the north and one in the South, should remain Afrikaans-medium institutions. His sentiments were shared by his Predecessor Nelson Mandela who was also supportive of an Afrikaans University.
“Mr Mandela said that out of 20 universities it should be possible to find at least one university which could see to the development of Afrikaans.”
Today, there are few Afrikaans universities left in practice, with Potchefstroom University being one of the few plausible exceptions.
The BELA Bill currently being introduced in Parliament makes no reference to the historical context of language issues in South Africa, which could lead to renewed conflict. The Democratic Alliance (DA) is already facing significant pressure on this matter from Afrikaner activists organisations such as Afriforum and I suspect that the situation isn’t going to improve.
But language aside, another major issue with the BELA Bill is that it is based on flawed data. The mandate for compulsory Grade R has no solid evidence to support it. The bill is based on the dogma that there is evidence for the benefit of “early childhood development” and that homeschooling “should be regulated” when in fact the opposite is true.
The government’s sales-pitch reads like good propaganda.
Grade R, the reception year before Grade 1, will now be compulsory.
This will enhance our focus on Early Childhood Development.
It will ensure young children are better prepared for formal schooling.
The law requires schools to apply the same standards for the admission of learners.
As the childhood psychologist Dr. Peter Gray has pointed out, there is no substantial proof behind much of what is labeled as "evidence-based education'“ and “early childhood development”.
What is this “rigorous evidence?” The authors cite roughly 20 research studies (more or less, depending on what you count as a study), and I looked them up. The evidence is this. If you do an experiment in preschools where children in some classes but not others are explicitly taught math skills, or literacy skills, and you test them on those skills at the end of the preschool year—or in a few cases at the beginning of kindergarten—those who were taught the skills score better on those skills than those who were not.
With sloppy data such as this, it’s best to not accept a new government Bill whose purpose is only to provoke conflict.