Standing for education: Lessons from the BELA Bill public hearing – part 1

Written by: Tendai Chitsike
Article source: JOY! Magazine

On Sunday 11 June, my family, alongside three other families, travelled from Grahamstown to attend the parliamentary public hearing for the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill in Gqeberha. The events of the day have become etched in our memories, providing us with many valuable life lessons (which I thought must be shared!). At the outset, I must admit that though various groups had spread the word concerning the nature of the Bill and the importance of attending the hearing, with everything else going on in life, I honestly paid little attention to their calls. This Bill seeks to severely restrict the governing authority of school governing bodies (SGB’s) and concentrate this power in the Minister of Basic Education, expand the power of the Education Department to close schools they deem too small, effectively compel homeschoolers to adopt the government-endorsed CAPS curriculum, and give the department the power to allow or deny every homeschooling parent the freedom to homeschool their own children, among other things.

A highly educational adventure
After discussing the aims of the Bill, and the fact that this was the very last hearing in the province, my wife and I decided, at 11pm the night before, that we would attend Sunday’s hearing 130 km away. We spent the next three hours drafting our individual submissions, wherein we would give reasons why we were rejecting the Bill. By 2am we were done. Straight after our church service, we, alongside other homeschooling families we knew, drove to the hall. While Sunday afternoons are not generally associated with a time of learning, the whole experience would prove to be highly educational, for both adults and children.

A fair opportunity for comments
Having never attended a parliamentary hearing, the first thing that caught my attention was the fact that we were even having such a hearing in the first place. Whatever qualms one may have had with the chairperson, they could not accuse her of skewing public participation to fit a preferred narrative. No, adults and children from across the ideological spectrum were given the opportunity to speak, whether they supported or rejected the Bill. I mention this because in many other countries, such public participation would not be allowed, or would be strictly limited to pro-government voices. This is something that we can be grateful to God for, and not take for granted. Rather, we should make maximum use of this opportunity, remembering that even the Apostle Paul made use of his legal rights as a Roman citizen.

Setting a godly example
Since then, I’ve been asked if there was any point in going and making submissions. Would they even take notice of our arguments against their Bill? Isn’t this just a rubber-stamping exercise to make it appear like they are taking our views into account? Haven’t they already predetermined to pass the Bill? To be honest, I asked myself those same questions. While I don’t have the answers, I realised two things in attending: The first is that if Christians fail to make the most of such opportunities, we can only expect evil to proliferate. Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The second relates to the faith of my children. In seeing the time, expense, and effort it took, my hope was that my children would see the value we place on educating them with a biblical worldview. If it did help in that regard, it would certainly be worth it for that reason alone. Moreover, there were several other lessons learnt, and that will be the subject of next month’s article…

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Date published: 25/08/2023
Feature image: Image for illustrative purposes only. Artwork adapted from www.rawpixel.com
Tendai Chitsike – Pastor of Every Nation Church in Makhanda. Email: engrahamstown@gmail.com

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