Empowering representative councils of learners through policy-making

Abstract

The right of learners to participate in decision-making as stakeholders in their own education was a significant area of controversy between learners and education authorities prior to 1994. At the end of the apartheid regime in 1994 the foundation was laid for a South Africa based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights as provided for in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act 108 of 1996), hereinafter referred to as the Constitution RSA. To give effect to these constitutional rights and to entrench the democratic values in society, a new system of education and training which required the phasing-in of new education legislation had to be created. The National Education Policy Act, 1996 (Act 27 of 1996) [NEPAl was the first comprehensive new act promulgated by the government after 1994. This act mainly provides for the promulgation of education policy by the Minister of Education. The South African Schools Act, 1996 (Act 84 of 1996) [SASAj, as amended, provides a national system of school education that advances democracy, the development of all leamers and the protection of rights, as well as promoting acceptance of responsibility by learners, parents and educators for the organisation of the school, its governance and its funding. The SASA has entrenched the rights of learners to participate as stakeholders in education by affording them representation in school governing bodies which have the status of being the only legitimate bodies representing parents and learners in public schools.