Dear Adv. Rudman,
Draft BASIC EDUCATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL –
Comments from Footprints On Our Land – South African Homeschool Curriculum Suppliers.
Executive Summary
We are the two owners of Footprints On Our Land, suppliers of home education learning materials.
We are also veteran home educating parents and experienced home education consultants, who regularly advise parents on issues pertaining to home education, including curriculum choices.
It is concerning that most curriculum suppliers and prominent home education consultants in South Africa have not been consulted during the process of drafting the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (hereafter referred to as the “BELA Bill” or “the Bill”.)
This is a major oversight and procedural mistake in the consultation process.
Some of the proposed provisions of the BELA Bill will have a huge financial impact on role players in the curriculum supply arena and will potentially violate the rights of citizens with respect to free trade.
For this reason, we would like to request that curriculum suppliers should be included in the process.
Background
Footprints On Our Land is a small curriculum supply enterprise, providing three literature-based, unit study curriculum packages, about South Africa, for three broad age groups.
It was started in 2002 by two homeschooling parents who wanted products like this for their own families and realised that other homeschooling families had the same need.
The three curriculum products we supply are unique and are uniquely South African!
The Footprints programmes are unique for the following reasons:
Facilitate multi-age learning
Instead of rigid grade levels as found in the school system, each one is aimed at a broad age group, namely 4-8 years, 8-14 years and 12-16 years, so that siblings, who are within the same broad age group, can share the same learning experience. In this way, our programmes facilitate multi-level learning in the home.
Literature-based unit studies
Each package includes a parent guide with lesson ideas and activities, plus stories (South African historical fiction) and reference books to enable children to learn all about South Africa, not only by reading stories together, but by experiencing the topics they are reading about in a unit study format. They learn about subjects such as our cultural groups, history, geography, natural and mineral resources, technology in SA and more.
Real life learning experiences
The programme encourages reading together as a family, practical activities as well as field trips to relevant places of interests such as museums, heritage sites, game reserves, art galleries and other places that offer learning experiences, so that learners can enjoy first hand learning opportunities. Our clients report that their children thrive when they learn this way, from stories and real-life experience, instead of just from text books in a classroom.
Encourage alternative perspectives on controversial topics
Our programmes also encourage families to read widely on any given topic, to read opposing points of view on controversial issues and to learn to be discerning and to think critically, so that children are not just ‘brainwashed’ into accepting the views of those who dominate society, be it the ruling party, the scientific community or religious authorities of the day.
Recognise bias and prejudices
The authors openly explain their own world-views and the possible biases they may hold because of their own cultures, upbringing and conditioning and they encourage clients to examine themselves and identify their own prejudices and different outlooks on important issues too.
Fill a niche in the market
Since many home educating families choose to use world-class international curriculum products, the three Footprints packages fill a niche in their children’s education that these overseas programmes lack, namely a focused, a literature-based, unit study of their own country, South Africa. Even families using local CAPS-aligned curricula, switch at some point to Footprints, so that their children can enjoy this unique South African learning experience!
Our company has two permanent employees and several freelancers, whom it employs on an ad hoc basis. The freelancers are all homeschooled learners and graduates. We also support a wide range of South African publishing houses, self-published authors and printers, from whom we purchase books and other materials to compile our educational packages.
Substantive Comments
General
The proposed amendments to section 51 of the SA Schools act, as set out in the BELA Bill, place unreasonable requirements and limitations on the freedoms of home educating families and home education curriculum suppliers in South Africa.
In order to obtain approval from the Head of Department for home education, parents will have to submit educational programmes to be used for home education, which match the content and skills of the national curriculum.
Likewise, in order to obtain approval, curriculum-supply companies will be forced to create and supply programmes which match the content and skills of the national curriculum.
Those who do not, will effectively be committing commercial suicide and be legislated out of business.
This could potentially have severe financial implications for existing home education supply companies, their staff and the families that are supported by the income generated by these businesses, as well as limiting the range of choices available to home educators.
We would like to bring this to your attention as it is highly unlikely that officials of the Department of Basic Education have given the business- and financial implications and consequences of the proposed changes adequate consideration.
We would also like to make comments on the following sections of the BELA Bill:
51 (1) and (2) Application for Registration
51 (1) A parent of a learner who is of compulsory school going age may apply to the Head of Department for the registration of a learner to receive home education.
51 (2) The Head of Department must approve the application and register the learner as contemplated in subsection (1) if he or she is satisfied that—
(a) education at home and registration as such is in the interests of the learner;
(b) the parent understands, accepts and is equipped to fulfil the responsibility of home education for the learner;
(c) the proposed home education programme is suitable for the learner’s age, grade level, ability and covers the acquisition of content and skills at least comparable to the relevant national curriculum determined by the Minister
In 15 years of home education consulting, we have found that firstly, parents often need a good few months to research the curriculum options for their children, when they start home education. If schooling didn’t work well for their children, they need time to find out about other practices and other philosophies of learning that work well outside the typical classroom scenario. Then they are better informed and can choose learning materials that will more successfully facilitate their child’s learning and be in their child’s best interests, which the Constitution says is of paramount importance.
Section 28 (2) of the SA Constitution states that: “A child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child.”
The requirement that a parent who is applying for registration of a learner at home must propose to the Head of Department the educational programme to be followed is impractical. This would potentially result in some parents to leaving their child in a detrimental school situation, while they do this much needed research before they can apply for approval, because they fear the possible consequences of been accused of violating this requirement and having to prove that they indeed acted in their child’s best interests.
Just because a parent has not yet selected an educational programme, does not mean that a child will not be being educated at home. Learning does not only happen using materials contained in a structured curriculum.
Parents who wish to order materials from overseas suppliers will be a difficult position, not knowing whether or not to spend money on a curriculum which might not be approved by the Head of Department. In effect, this would force them to limit their choices to local curriculum suppliers, which may not be in the best interests of their children.
It is unlikely that the Head of Department would have the time, knowledge or capacity to evaluate every possible home education programme available in the world and available to South African families via the Internet.
Moreover, giving the choice of curriculum to the Head of Department, who does not personally know the child concerned, cannot be in the child’s best interests. It also violates the parent’s right to choose the form of education in the best interests of the child.
51 (2)(d)(iii) & (iv) Annual Assessments
51 (2) (d) the parent undertakes to-
(i) make suitable educational resources available to support the learner’s learning; (ii) monitor the learner’s learning;
(iii) arrange for the learner’s educational attainment to be assessed annually by a competent assessor, approved by the Head of Department, at the parent’s own expense who will apply a standard that is not inferior to the standard expected in a public school according to the learner’s age, grade level and ability. and
(iv) provide the Head of Department with the learner’s assessment report signed by the competent assessor.
- Compulsory annual assessments will force parents to teach to the test and force parents to use only CAPS-aligned curriculum products so that the content and skills the children learn matches the content and skills on the tests they will be forced to take.
- Testing or assessment will place unnecessary stress and trauma on parents and children alike, who will live in fear that their right to home educate may be cancelled pending the outcome of an assessment.
- The cost of assessment will place a further financial burden on families who are already bearing the full cost of educating their children at home and thereby saving the state an estimated R12 000 per year per learner.
- There is no evidence to show that assessment will improve the quality of education received by learners at home. In fact, it means that less money will be spent on educational materials as parents have to budget for the cost of the assessments for each child. This might affect the quality of the education they receive.
- Even in the school system, learners who fail a grade, may only repeat a grade once per phase and are then progressed year after year until they fail in the next phase. Assessment therefore does not necessarily improve the quality of education received by the child. Would this same principle apply to home education?
- The Constitution provides a General Limitation Clause at Section 36, which provides for all rights in the Bill of Rights to be limited in terms of law of general application and that “limitations must be reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.” Any limitation must therefore be reasonable and may only be made with good cause.
These paragraphs of the BELA Bill do not show good cause for limiting freedom and requiring assessments of learners.
51 (2)(c) National Curriculum
Many home educating families follow an eclectic approach, whereby they select a variety of different curriculum products from different sources, to teach various subjects and skills to their children.
This practice is especially prevalent until the end of grade 9. At this point, many families then switch to more formal, all-in-one curricula, which provide text books for every subject, to prepare learners for examinations so that they can earn recognised school-leaving certificates, such as the National Senior Certificate, Cambridge, the GED®, American High School Diplomas or other options.
The provisions of the proposed BELA Bill, which seek to compel home educators to use only educational programmes that match the content and skills of the national curriculum, will in practice, force home educated learners to use only CAPS-aligned curriculum products for all grade levels.
These products generally do not enthuse parents, do not delight the learners to love learning and do not promote many of the goals of home education. Usually parents find that they are not in the best interests of their children.
- There is no evidence that the use of these products will improve the quality of home education or the academic achievements of home educated learners. On the contrary, many experts on home education believe that they will have the opposite effect.
- The provision infringes on the right of parents to choose the form of education that is in the best interests of the child.
- This provision will potentially give approved curriculum suppliers a state-sanctioned monopoly, which is not in the interests of fair trade.
It would violate the right of citizens and curriculum supply companies to trade freely.
Section 22 of the Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution states:
“Every citizen has the right to choose their trade, occupation or profession freely. The practice of a trade, occupation or profession may be regulated by law.”
This right may only be restricted if it is in the interests of the public in an open, fair and democratic environment.
Since our Footprints On Our Land curriculum products are completely different in the way they are structured, not being graded into strict grade-levels and were never designed to match the requirements of CAPS, this provision would effectively legislate us out of business, with serious financial implications for our families!
This would be an unreasonable violation of our right to trade freely!
It would also have serious implications on our families and dependents. The two owners of Footprints On Our Land are the parents of 10 children between two families. We also provide housing and financial support to our some of extended family and support a foster care NGO that cares for special-needs, abandoned babies on a monthly basis.
Already, the uncertainty caused by the Bill is causing parents to hesitate with buying their curriculum products for 2018 and negatively affecting curriculum sales.
- The provision would also violate of freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution in Section 16(1) which includes the right to academic freedom and the right to receive or share ideas (other than those presented in the national curriculum).
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of the press and other media; freedom to receive or impart information or ideas; freedom of artistic creativity; and academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.”
No education is value-neutral and many home educating families have religious and philosophical objections to the humanistic views promoted in the national curriculum, particularly in the content of the Life Orientation syllabus.
There is a broad range of religious beliefs among the home educating community and limiting their choice of curricula to only those that match the content of the national curriculum would potentially infringe on this right.
It also makes one question whether curricula which promote a specific religion or world view would be included in those that receive the approval of the Head of Department. If not, this could be discrimination on the basis of religion, thought, belief and opinion.
Section 15 states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion.”
The ethos of the Constitution is to allow freedom of individuals, within reasonable limits and there is little evidence to suggest just cause for giving the Head of Department the power to approve the educational programmes that home educators may choose for their children.
As stated above, the requirement for approval is a violation of the rights of parents to choose the form of education in their children’s best interests and should be removed.
It is also a potential violation of the right to free trade and for this reason too, this section should be removed.
51(6) School leaving qualifications
Many homeschoolers do not wish to write the National Senior Certificate (NSC), but for various reasons prefer to obtain international school leaving qualifications.
Many home educators find that following literature-based curriculums, such as Footprints On Our Land and other home educating practices and approaches are highly effective at preparing students for the requirements of these school-leaving examinations. The high pass rate on international examinations and other academic achievements of home educated learners is evidence of this. [Unfortunately, since the DBE has never funded research into home education, there are no formal statistics for this, only anecdotal evidence.]
Limiting homeschoolers to use only CAPS-based curricula and to only write the NSC would firstly infringe on many rights of home educating families, such as the right to choose the form of education in their children’s best interests, the right to freedom of expression and the paramountcy of the child’s best interests.
Secondly, limiting school leaving options to only the NSC would effectively legislate all non-CAPS-compliant curriculum suppliers out of business.
This would be a further unreasonable infringement on the right to free trade as enshrined in Section 22 of the Constitution.
Again, for the reasons above, we recommend that section 51(1) and (2) should be removed.
Conclusion
Home education curriculum suppliers and consultants have not been adequately consulted in the drafting of the BELA Bill and this could have serious implications for both home educating families and the businesses on which they depend, when selecting educational programmes, which they believe to be in the best interests of their children.
Because of this gross procedural oversight, we would like to request that the section on home education should be removed from the BELA Bill and the DBE should go back to the table and begin a fair and inclusive consultation process with home education stakeholders, including curriculum suppliers.
Since we have had insufficient time to study the BELA Bill in its entirety or in great detail, we have only focused on the section pertaining to home education, in the limited time we have had since it was published, and we reserve the right to make further submissions.
Yours sincerely
Shirley Erwee and Wendy Young
Directors of Footprints On Our Land