RP Says, If You Want the Springboks to Keep Winning, Oppose the BELA Bill

The Referendum Party (RP) shares the widely reported concerns of many parties and organisations when it comes to the signing of the BELA Bill into law. In particular we are concerned that control of admission and language policy is being taken away from School Governing Bodies (SGB) and handed to the government.

Many people see the BELA Bill as a thinly veiled attack on Afrikaans schools which the government effectively wants to appropriate control over.

RP Leader Phil Craig says, “There are people cheering for the BELA Bill to be signed and the last parliament overwhelmingly endorsed it. Many of them are the very same people who are celebrating the success of the Springboks which they offer up as proof of all that can be good in South Africa. We challenge those people to consider how successful the Springboks would have been without Afrikaans schools. 26 out of 33 players in the 2023 world cup winning squad went to Afrikaans schools, 12 of them single medium.”

A leopard doesn’t change its spots and the ANC continue to want to rename and commandeer the hard work of others rather than building capacity for itself. Its record in education is appalling. It should rather focus on taking the unions in hand, increasing skills within the teaching profession, and ensuring that school funding benefits learners rather than the ANC connected political elite.

Craig says, “It's time for South Africa to reflect on what ‘United in our diversity’ really means. If our government is not going to respect and celebrate minority cultures, then it is trampling on the values which underpin our current constitutional era.”

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