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SGBs to lose power

The Basic Education Department is set to squash the powers of the country's school governing bodies if it can push through proposed amendments to the South African Schools Act.

The sought-after changes, which will impact on a school's language policy, teacher appointments and pupil admissions, have put the department and school governing bodies on a collision course. The public has until November 10 to comment on the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill, which was published earlier this month.

The issues the bill raises are highly contentious and have seen the department and school governing bodies clash before in the Constitutional Court.

The Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) has slammed the bill, which it believes is deliberately structured to diminish the powers of governing bodies in important decision-making at schools.

Fedsas warns that there will be unrest from communities if they are no longer able to have a say over teacher and school principal appointments. Jaco Deacon, deputy chief executive of Fedsas, said the proposed amendments were "short-sighted".

Teachers union Sadtu and the National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB) also condemned the proposed changes. "We don't agree with the proposal because we think that the capacity problem [faced by school governing bodies] should be addressed instead of reducing schools to state schools," said Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke.

The NASGB's Matakanye Matakanya said: "We have opposed the proposal on several platforms... because we believe it takes us back to apartheid days where communities never had a say in how schools in their community are being run."

The bill seeks to restrict who has the final say on admissions and candidates for appointments. SGBs will only be able to make recommendations. It also seeks to impose stricter penalties for parents who refuse to send their children to school, increasing the current six months' imprisonment to six years.