South Africa’s President Ramaphosa moves to avert coalition row

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has tried to head off a major row within his uneasy governing coalition by delaying the implementation of the most controversial part of a new education law.

A dispute over language policy had threatened the stability of the 10-party government created after the African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in May’s election.

Speaking before he signed the new measures into law at a public ceremony, Mr Ramaphosa said there would now be a three-month consultation period.

John Steenhuisen, the leader of the coalition’s second largest party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), had previously said that if the signing went ahead, the party would “have to consider all of our options on the way forward”.

Prior to the election the ANC and the DA, then on opposite sides of the political divide, had been at loggerheads over the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) bill.

The president says he now wants the parties in government to find ways for “different views [to] be accommodated”.

The disputed law, passed by the previous ANC-dominated parliament, outlines controversial and significant reforms to existing education law.

The major changes include:

• School admissions and the language of instruction will be regulated by government
• 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.

Experts say that South Africa’s education system needs to drastically improve.

In 2021, it ranked last out of 57 countries assessed in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which tested the reading ability of 400,000 students around the world.

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, with previously white schools still far better equipped than those serving mainly black communities

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.

In the days leading up to the signing of the bill, DA leader Steenhuisen, who is also the agriculture minister, had talked tough over what might happen.

He first said that the Bela bill violated “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 on Thursday his message had softened slightly. He said that conflict over policy was not necessarily “an existential threat to the government”, echoing similar comments from the president’s spokesperson.

Ramaphosa’s proposal to delay the implementation of the language measure responds to the DA’s suggestion that it has some changes that would make it acceptable.

The parties now have three months to find a way through.

But they may then find themselves in the same position as they are now, as the president said the law would be implemented as it is if no compromise is found.