Policy reflections

In late 2024 I decided to add this page to my blog, the intention being to reflect personally on policies affecting education in South Africa, in other countries, and even the global organisations, for instance in relation to standardised reporting on learning. In these personal reflections I want to focus strongly on how the things we do in education contribute, or do not contribute, towards better learning, especially at the primary level. This is a key concern in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for good reason. I’ve expressed the typical logic for this in, for instance, this report (see section 2.2). My aim is also to focus on how data and statistics can tighten up the policy discussions. I want to be honest, while avoiding sensationalism and emotional mud-slinging, of which there is quite an abundance in the education policy debates. My framework draws strongly from the economics of education – that’s my current profession – and the history behind what we see today – once upon a time I qualified as history teacher.

What the BELA Act does and does not do

30 November 2024

What is the significance of the various parts of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act of 2024? What are the key financial and non-financial numbers we should keep in mind? How might the Act affect how learners learn?

There are 40 sections in the Act amending the South African Schools Act (SASA), while 13 amend the Employment of Educators Act (EEA). Unfortunately, integrated SASA and EEA texts with all amendments up to 2024 (there have been many before 2024) are not publicly available yet. Given past trends, this might take a couple of years.

There is one hugely significant, and widely embraced, SASA amendment: making the grade before Grade 1, Grade R, compulsory (section 2 of BELA). Then there are several SASA amendments which, at least in a legal sense, increase the powers of the head of the provincial department, mostly relative to the school governing body (SGB). These amendments deal with: the languages of learning and teaching (LOLTs) used by the school (section 5); the admission of learners (4); and home schooling (35). Finally, having certain schools focus on specifically talented learners is facilitated (12). These are for me the substantive amendments.

Data behind this report indicate that some 80% of children get to participate in Grade R in a school. The amended SASA requires that to be 100%. An obvious solution is to have more Grade R places in public schools. A less obvious solution is to re-classify pre-schools currently providing Grade R as schools in the legal sense, even if they do not offer Grade 1 and above. These pre-schools are nearly all private, and some are subsidised by the state. Data I have looked at indicate that the middle class is over twice as likely not to have their children attend Grade R in a school, mainly because they are in a private pre-school. Analysis from some years back suggests this is not a new pattern. If BELA is to be implemented in a pro-poor fashion, funding and management effort should be directed at the approximately 100,000 children who are ‘missing’ from Grade R in the poorer quintiles 1 to 3 schools. How many of these 100,000 are already in subsidised centres as opposed to being un-enrolled is difficult to ascertain. But the number would not be insignificant.

It is widely understood that if Grade R becomes compulsory, its per learner funding in public schools would become comparable to that in grades 1 and above. My reading of the various policies is that there is no clear legal requirement to increase Grade R per learner funding, even if this seems desirable. Clearly, a critical question is what the gap currently is between per learner public funding in Grade R and in Grade 1. It is sometimes assumed that because the policy requires Grade R to be funded at 70% of the Grade 1 level, that is what is actually happening. I suspect the actual gap is much wider – the 2022 World Bank report on ECD in South Africa points to Grade R enjoying only around 35% of Grade 1 funding (see Figure 29).

But will increasing schools-based Grade R attendance in poorer communities from around 85% to 100% help boost learning across all grades? Reference is often made to this excellent study that finds having done Grade R in a school barely changes one’s learning prospects in later grades. The problem with this study is that it uses data from a time when Grade R was even more under-resourced and under-prioritised than it is today. The bottom line is that we actually know little about the impact of Grade R as currently offered.

The BELA amendments aimed at elevating the powers of heads of provincial departments are the ones that have sparked controversy. The ANC has argued that SDG powers are not reduced, but are simply harmonised with those of the department. It has moreover emphasised that BELA will reduce the use of a school’s language policy as a means of excluding learners. On BELA, the EFF’s and MKP’s positions have largely been in line with those of the ANC. The DA’s strong opposition to BELA has officially focussed on the undesirability of reducing SDG powers. Indeed, the NDP is supportive of strong SDGs as part of ‘citizen participation’.

In my view, simmering beneath the surface of the BELA debates around SGB powers are historically rooted tensions between, on the one hand, those who recall that the imposition of Afrikaans in schools was a catalyst for the broader struggle against apartheid and, on the other hand, white Afrikaner nationalists. Relevant and historically sensitive research on this topic could help. Among primary-level learners, some 7% are taught in Afrikaans. But a sub-set of this, 2% of primary learners, are in some 300 schools which are, firstly, historically white and, secondly, use no LOLT other than Afrikaans. Within these 300 schools, only 4% of learners speak an African language at home. Some research exists on discriminatory practices in these schools, and similar secondary schools, but we would benefit from some more if we are to understand how BELA might change the situation.

In short, the BELA Act provides the foundations for the universalisation of Grade R, but is not meant to deal with the critical matter of the quality of Grade R, and is essentially silent on key resourcing questions. While the Act does appear to strengthen the powers of the head of the provincial department, it is striking how many complex checks and balances there are on the new powers, to the extent that I wonder whether the Act will in fact alter the balance of power between the department and SGBs, particularly the SGBs of historically advantaged schools. There is a lot of work, in terms of support to schools and school accountability, which must still be done at the national and provincial levels to realise the system envisaged in the NDP. That is work which essentially falls outside the ambit of the BELA Act.