By Umamah Bakharia 

The DA has started a #StopSchoolCapture petition.

The new school education amendment bill proposes that the government make decisions rather than the school’s governing body.

The petition states that the new ANC bill wants to ultimately rob school governing bodies of the right to determine schools’ admissions and language policies in their communities.

Speaking to Radio Islam, the DA’s Shadow MEC of Education Programming, Khume Ramulifho says this bill will take away the appeal processors from schools.

“We believe this will weaken the school governing body role and it will just be a formality to have one where they can’t make any decisions,” says Ramulifho.

This decision extends to religious beliefs, admissions and language.

“As of now, the MEC (Member of the Executive Council) is not the one that makes the final decision [but rather the school governing body],” says Ramulifho.

The #StopSchoolCapture aims to highlight the important role of school governing bodies that the DA says the ANC is currently ignoring.

“[People] are not aware of these changes so we need to make them aware [of these decisions that are being made],” says Ramulifho.

If the bill is passed in parliament, this will mean that school governing will not have decision making authority on the schooling system.