You have just seven days left to send your BELA Bill submission to the PCBE (Portfolio Committee on Basic Education). During the previous round of commentary in 2017 homeschoolers sent in their comments to the DBE officials. Now the comments go to the PCBE, the parliamentary committee that oversees Basic Education, consisting of politicians. They are not familiar with the BELA Bill, and need solid information to be able to debate on it meaningfully.
A. Free-form letter
This is the best option if you have the time to write and do not need a template to guide you. Do you need some more background information? You will find the detailed information in the Submission Guide and our Suggestions for your letter to the PCBE very helpful. The Pestalozzi Trust encourages everyone who can to write a highly personalized submission.
B. Template letter
Do you need a bit of help structuring your submission? Then you can use a template to help you.
We have developed three templates that you can use. The templates are aligned to the three most common views on the BELA Bill among home educators as determined by our research. If you want to Split the Bill (remove home education from the BELA Bill, which is a schools bill), suggest Ways to Amend the Bill or say No BELA Bill for regulating home education, these templates were written specially to guide you. Please follow the instructions carefully to make your submission as personalized as possible.
C. Our special BELA Bill Survey!
PLEASE quickly spend 10 minutes to complete the BELA Bill survey, even if you have already written a letter. You can go straight to the BELA Bill Survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MDNCV32. This is a very special survey. The reason is this: To voice home educators’ worries and opinions the Pestalozzi Trust will use this data in the survey as the basis of a special submission to the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education. We will be reporting to the committee on what home educators want to see happening with home school regulation.
So PLEASE complete the BELA Bill Survey to make sure your voice is heard, albeit in an indirect way. (If you only complete the survey, this submission of yours will not count as an individual submission to parliament but be part of a single submission by the Pestalozzi Trust.) Important: this report will make it easier for the committee to understand what home educators think.
Do you prefer to remain ANONYMOUS? Then you may use the system that the Trust has developed that will generate a code you can use to make your comments anonymously in the SurveyMonkey. This will also be part of the special submission by the Trust. Your voice will be included, though, as we will report on your comments. To use the anonymous system, you can go here: https://pestalozzi.org/anonymous-bela-bill-survey/ And if you haven’t completed our registration survey we sent out previously, please do so now: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2HYCTZ6. This survey gathers crucial information to fight the BELA Bill. It is completely anonymous.
Have questions? Ask us!
Still not quite sure what is going on, and what it has to do with you or your homeschooling? Or worried whether it is safe to send a letter?
- First watch this video on the BELA Bill and on what you can do: https://youtu.be/VvnqWmwBsoo.
- Then join us at one of these Q&A Webinars to get answers to your questions and get practical help with your submission:
Friday, June 10th, 2022 @ 14h00: https://meet.goto.com/744150813
Monday, Jun 13th, 2022 @ 19h00: https://meet.goto.com/224831877
See you there!
We probably won’t fight this fight again in our lifetime. Don’t let the opportunity go by without giving your all!
