The DA wants Parliament to investigate the alleged breaching of processes regarding public participation on the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill.

“The DA will be writing to the National Assembly House chairperson, Cedric Frolick, to inform him of breached processes regarding the public participation process and to request an investigation. We will also request the postponement of further hearings until Parliament gets its ducks in a row,” said DA shadow minister of education Baxolile Nodada.

“On Friday, the chair of the parliamentary portfolio committee on basic education, Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba, informed committee members that this weekend’s public hearings would proceed without the necessary support from Parliament’s public education office as they were short-staffed.

“This meant that the normal procedure for public hearings was not followed and that Parliament did not scout the communities the week before to identify and arrange suitable venues, nor did they communicate with the communities and stakeholders to educate them on the Bill and mobilise them to attend the hearings.

“Instead, the whole weekend’s arrangements and communication were shouldered by the chair’s team – and the attempts to present public sentiment in a particular light is clear as day. The weekend’s hearings were one fiasco after another,” he said.

This comes as Mbinqo-Gigaba on Sunday announced that the last leg of the hearings held in Mpumalanga would be postponed.

“The decision to postpone the hearings  is as a result of miscommunication of venues which has led to stakeholders going to different venues. In order to preserve and maintain the credibility of the public hearings on the Bill, the committee has decided to postpone the hearing and to convene it on a date and in a venue to be communicated later.

“Furthermore, the committee is conscious of the need to hold three sessions in Mpumalanga as it had done in all other provinces, as such it has resolved to determine a new date for a further hearing in Mpumalanga. The chairperson of the committee, Ms Bongiwe Mbhinqo-Gigaba, wishes to apologise profusely for the inconvenience this would have caused to all stakeholders concerned,” Mbingo-Gigaba said.

Some of the key amendments that the Bill aims to make include criminalising parents who are not taking their children to school – they could face jail time of up to 12 months or pay a fine; making grade R the new compulsory school starting age, as opposed to grade 1; compelling home-schooled learners to register for this type of schooling; abolishing corporal punishment and initiation/hazing practices; and allowing schools to sell alcohol outside of school hours or during events.

Nodada said the party had repeatedly warned that the ANC was trying to capture the public participation process.

“Today’s [Sunday] public hearing was cancelled at the last minute, because venue and time changes led to confusion and robbed the Ermelo communities of an opportunity to make their voices heard.

“The hearings on Friday in Bushbuckridge contained merely a handful of actual community members – the majority of participants were bussed-in ANC members from other communities,” Nodada said.

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