‘State wants to hijack home education’ – The Pestalozzi Trust
The Pestalozzi Trust, a legal defence fund for home and civil education, said that along with an assault on parent’s rights to run school governing bodies, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) now wants to hijack home education.
“However, the department has discovered that home invasion isn’t so easy,” said Karin van Oostrum, executive officer of the Pestalozzi Trust.
“On Tuesday (October 24) a flood of requests for an extension of the period for public comment on the new draft of the Basic Education Amendments Law (BELA) overwhelmed their systems.
“The department phoned me to request our members to stop emailing and phoning them.”
Trust chairperson Bouwe van der Eems explained the trust aims to prevent and resolve conflict with the education department and, when necessary, pays the legal costs of families fighting for their right to choose what is best for their children.
“Home education has been legal since 1996, but this does not mean the parents of children in home education and in cottage schools have been free from unlawful harassment by department officials,” said van der Eems.
“The new bill, however, proposes irrational measures that will be costly and disrupt families.
“Valuable state resources will be wasted as every education department is under immense financial pressure. On current projections, all departments will end 2017 with a shortfall.
“Yet, the draft bill’s provisions are likely to entail additional administrative costs some experts predict may top out at R100-million per annum.
“Although no one really knows, the Pestalozzi Trust’s request for details of the socio-economic impact assessment of the home education sections of the bill, has to date been ignored.
“Home education representatives believe most of this is unnecessary and wasteful bureaucratic expenditure.”
The trust estimates the administrative costs an individual family will bear, could be as high as R20 000 per annum – before the costs of tuition, books and materials.
“A significant number of home educators simply cannot afford this,” said van Oostrum, who works closely with home-educating families on a daily basis.
“Should this bill become law, homeschoolers may have no other option than to go to a local public school, which will further increase the burden on the state.”
She said the concept of home education is foreign to the DBE.
“We have tried to consult with them but they froze us out of the process in 2015 and haven’t asked for our input since then. This has ended up making the bill unworkable in the home education environment. They need to consult us so that we can create a law that works for all stakeholders,” van Eems said.
He added that the most alarming provision of the bill was that if the department gets its way, homeschooling parents may well face jail time of up to six years.
Van Oostrum said: “Some homeschoolers are really scared that this may rip families apart. If parents are jailed and there is no one to look after their children, parents could lose custody and have their children placed in foster care.
“We are going back to the days of the apartheid government.”
She said that in 1992 Andre and Bokkie Meintjes were jailed because they wanted to homeschool their children.
“Homeschoolers will not have their rights taken away from them without a fight,” said van Oostrum, “and we hope the department will come to the table so that we can avoid a repeat of Tuesday’s events.”
She urged homeschoolers to join the Pestalozzi Trust in their fight to secure the best education possible for their children.
(Information: Pestalozzi Trust).
