TIME IS RUNNING OUT
The Department of Basic Education is preparing to present the BELA Bill to the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) as soon as possible. Your provincial minister of education or MEC sits on CEM and this is your LAST OPPORTUNITY to ask your provincial minister to speak to the National Minister on your behalf. As your elected representative (whether you voted for them or not) the Minister/MEC must represent the views of the people of their province.
ASK THEM TO DO THEIR DUTY and tell the National Minister what the home educators in your province think of the BELA Bill.
You need to TAKE ACTION NOW to protect home school freedom from the intrusive BELA Bill.
The BELA Bill received a lot of attention and opposition when it was first promulgated but time has gone by, media interest has waned, COVID has disrupted our lives and most of us have forgotten about it. But ….
BELA BILL IS BACK!!!
The Trust has secured a few important changes to the Bill but those don’t change the fundamental reality that:
- If this becomes law the DBE will be in a position to prosecute home educators and you will have to be willing to defend your home education in court.
- An official will be deciding if you are fit to home educate.
- Your child will be assessed against the National Curriculum Statement/CAPS criteria. See these articles (CAPS 1) and (CAPS 2) for a discussion of this point.
But YOU CAN DO SOMETHING
The DBE claims in public and in parliament that it only makes laws that are research led and science based. Over the last twenty years the Pestalozzi Trust has consistently called on the Department to conduct home education research.
In 2015, the Department recognized that research into home education was needed. The Department’s own consultant said that reliable information should first be gained from independent research on the home education phenomenon before any changes could be made to the law.
That is a fancy way of saying you shouldn’t make laws about things you don’t understand and the Department’s own expert told them that, or to put it more bluntly:
NO RESEARCH – NO BELA BILL
Your province’s education MEC (Member of the Executive Council) or Minister of Education needs to hear from you that they should, at very least, not endorse the BELA Bill until the DBE has done credible research into home education.
TIME IS RUNNING OUT: PLEASE SEND A LETTER
The Pestalozzi Trust has set up a system that allows you to easily send an urgent letter to your MEC telling them that the DBE has no research to back up this change in the law and why you oppose BELA BILL.
The Trust has reasoned with the DBE but the arguments that the Trust has put forward are explained away as the views of a few disgruntled home educators. PROVE THEM WRONG.
We are calling on home educators to come together in their numbers to show the DBE and the Provincial Education Departments that the VAST MAJORITY of us REJECT THE BELA BILL.
This is a once in a generation fight, CAN YOUR CHILDREN AND GRAND-CHILDREN COUNT ON YOU?
THIS WILL JUST TAKE MINUTES
We have created a special platform that will generate a letter for you automatically. You just need to fill in the information requested and explain to your provincial MEC (this will also be automatically copied to the National Minister, Min. Angie Motshekga):
- WHY YOU OBJECT TO AN OFFICIAL DECIDING IF YOU ARE FIT TO HOME EDUCATE!!!
- HOW YOUR CHILD HAS BENEFITTED FROM HOME EDUCATION!!!3
- WHY BEING ASSESSED AGAINST CAPS WILL NOT HELP YOUR CHILD!!!
YES, I WANT TO FIGHT FOR HOMESCHOOL FREEDOM, HOW DO I SEND A LETTER?
To send your letter, just click on this link. Enter your name and email address in the form and write a paragraph setting out your reasons for rejecting the BELA BilL.
WILL THE DBE KNOW WHO SENT THE LETTER?
NO; this will be an ANONYMOUS LETTER.
Only the Trust will know you sent a letter.
What will my letter to the Minister look like? When received by the Minister your letter will look like this.
Don’t worry; you will not have to meet with the MEC/Minister. The Trust will attend the meeting on your behalf, invite home education associations and volunteer parents. If we are successful in securing a meeting and you would like to attend let us know.
As we said above the Pestalozzi Trust platform also keeps records of all the letters sent so that this can be used as evidence in any legal challenge. Your contact details will be securely kept in a hidden file on the Trust website only; so you don’t have to worry about your contact details being revealed anywhere.
URGENT ACTION NEEDED NOW
This is an ORANGE ALERT; urgent ACTION is NEEDED NOW to stop the situation getting worse.
Even if the BELA BILL is approved at CEM it will not be law and we will continue to fight as it is prepared for parliament and when it comes to parliament, but LET’S STOP BELA BILL NOW!
THANK YOU FOR TAKING TIME TO PROTECT HOME EDUCATION.
Please send a letter on my behalf against the Bela Bill. I am a homeschool mom with two children that I homeschool.
We need homeschooling
I vote for freedom of choisr
We have the freedom and the human right to choose how our children are educated.
Good day
I as the parent to my children, I know them best. Not just as parent child relationship but also a teacher student relationship. I have a child with a learning disability and have found a way to educate him without breaking down his self esteem. He has flourish under my guidance and i am not a qualified teacher. I am able to educate, encourage, equipped and build on my child for their future. I feel that the current RSA system (CAPS) has failed my child and also many others. It does not caterer to my child’s learning disabilities and does not teacher my children the Christian values that I have taught them. The CAPs system does not equip them with the correct tools for their future. They do not install values and morals for the future generation. Please leave us homeschoolers alone and concentrate on the current issues that are in the schools. Get your system right before trying to change mine.
Would you please speak on our families behalf. We as a family benefitted tremendously by homeschooling especially in a financial very difficult time. We don’t agree that an official can declare one fit or not fit to educate ones’s children. Homeschooling brought our family together and gave us much steadiness that lacked for a long time.