Homeschooling in South Africa
Homeschooling in South Africa (also known as home education there) had been illegal, until it was recognized in 1996 under the South African School Legislation, since then it has grown significantly. Notable moments in the history of homeschooling are provided below. Most of the content comes directly from primary sources and has not been documented anywhere yet: 1868-1900. Dr Andrew Murray was the only minister in the Nederduitsch Gereformeerde (NG) church in the Free State and Transvaal, and he was based in Bloemfontein. He was tasked to travel through both republics baptizing people, giving catechism  and performing marriage ceremonies. Dr. Murray was surprised that he very seldom found young people that were illiterate, in reading, writing and arithmetic and this despite the fact that there were no schools in the area traveled. Nomad farmers bordering the north east of the Cape Colony in the eighteen hundreds had no schools, teachers or religious ministers, and yet literacy was a universal occurrence. 1900-1991. Government schools increased in implementation and the freedom of home schooling was increasingly limited. By the 1990s only a few families were allowed to homeschool under severe restrictions, if they could have their  children exempted from compulsory school attendance. That was only granted up to Grade 3, if the family lived more than 80 km from the nearest school and if the child(ren) were taught by a teacher qualified to teach the junior primary phase. 1992. The Association for Homeschooling is established. 1993 (Homeschoolers jailed). On 14 December 1993 Andre and Bokkie Meintjies were sentenced to prison because their children did not attend formal school. In a court case that lasted for almost five years, Andre was sentenced to two years and Bokkie one year in separate jails in Johannesburg, and this while  their three children were placed in an orphanage in the Eastern Cape to prevent contact between the parents and children. Several other parents were given suspended sentences on condition they put their children in schools. All of those parents still have criminal records. 1994. A group action was launched by the Association for Homeschooling and the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) from the USA that led to release of both Bokkie and Andre. The Meintjies couple were however released six months later under a blanket amnesty for prisoners with the implementation of the new constitution. 1995. Concept legislation was  published to the effect that home schooling was to be illegal in South Africa. This led to a campaign being launched by home school leaders like Leendert van Oostrum, Graham Shortridge and Kate Durham with the HSLDA. Thousands of home schoolers in the USA wrote letters to the South African embassy in the US in support of this campaign. In that time, SA was still expecting to receive large grants from America, and American public opinion was taken seriously. 1996 (SA Schools Act acknowledges home education). In November of this year the SA Schools Act was promulgated wherein home schooling  was recognized. In December of the same year, the new constitution of South Africa was accepted, in which the legal status of home schooling was entrenched more securely. The act requires that every home learner be registered with the relevant provincial education department – unless there is good reason not to. 1998. The Pestalozzi Trust is established in accordance with a brief from the general meeting of the Association for Homeschooling to serve as a legal fund to ensure the continued freedom and to promote such freedom. 1999. Mr. Kader Asmal publishes the national policy concerning the registration of home schoolers , wherein the input from both the home schooling contingent and the provincial education departments is totally ignored. The Pestalozzi Trust advises home schoolers that the policy is in direct conflict with the SA Schools Act, and therefore not enforceable. 2001 - 2002 (Persecution of Doddie Kleynhans and Promulgation of NCS). The National Curriculum statement claims that it is based on the Manifesto, although the final publication of the Manifesto was only released after the National Curriculum Statement (NCS). It is put this way in the policy document in the NCS (pg.7). "The Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (Department of Education , 2001) identifies ten fundamental values of the Constitution…The Manifesto further identifies sixteen strategies to acquaint young South Africans with the values of the Constitution. This strategy is articulated in the Revised National Curriculum Statement and includes the following:…" This time delay indicates that the values upon which the NCS is based, were established long beforehand, and that the process used to compose the manifesto is deceptive. Many groups have objections against this Curriculum statement. The most important points of criticism against the National curriculum are the following:a) It attempts to transfer the values of the Inter-faith religion  to pupils. For those who wish to find out more about this aspect of the curriculum, the video “"Die Intergeloofs – en New Age infiltrasie in die onderwys"” by Sarel van der Merwe is strongly recommended. In Gr. 1 the following is expected: “"Matches symbols associated with a range of religions in South Africa"” From Gr. 4 pupils the following is expected: “"demonstrate planning and skillful use of design elements in creating masks based on various nature gods of different cultures";” Gr. 6 pupils must “Finds out about, tries out and explains a song-dance ritual (e.g. snake dance, rain dance , wedding dance circle dance, reed dance, stick dance), referring to its purpose and structure - patterns, repetition and sequence.” b) Sex education from a secular perspective forms an integral part of the NCS. In Gr. 1 a pupil is expected to do the following: “"Recognises situations that may be, or may lead to, sexual abuse,"...” In Gr. 6 the following is expected: “"Explains causes of communicable diseases (including HIV/AIDS) and available cures, and evaluates prevention strategies, in relation to community norms and personal values".” c) ) It attempts to break down cultural diversity and to transfer the culture of the regime ’s fabricated ‘Rainbow Nation’. In the learning area of Social Science, the French Huguenots, the British settlers and the Great Trek are not addressed. Western History is overwhelmingly portrayed in a negative light. Instead of his own history, for example the Afrikaans child is instructed in African civilizations in South Africa prior to 1600; inequality in existence, slavery etc. For instance, in Gr. 7 the following is expected of pupils: : “Composes music, songs or jingles about human rights issues or to accompany a performance or presentation about human rights.”The summary of the NCS puts it this way: “The promotion  of values is important not only for personal development, but also to ensure that a national South African identity is built on values that differ from those which undergirded apartheid educationThe following facts indicate that the aim of the department of education was to get this document approved without parents, teachers and school governing bodies noticing it and having enough time to react meaningfully.a) The document consists of 1 400 pages, available only in English, and makes liberal use of terms with which the average parent is not familiar. An example is the sentence, “An outcomes-based framework uses assessment  methods that are able to accommodate divergent contextual factors.” It would be quite justifiable to ask whether it is fair to expect average parents to be able to react meaningfully to such a document while they are busy at the same time with their normal daily routine. b) Although there are 29 000 schools in South Africa, excluding University Departments and Teacher training colleges, only 11 000 copies of the NCS were printed. Seeing as it is unlikely that the education department does not know how many schools there are in the country, this indicates that the intention of the  education department was that the document would not be distributed to all schools, let alone to all teachers and parents. Some regional offices only notified schools on 4 October that they could view the NCS at the offices of specific officials. Given that it is an almost impossible task to adequately study and evaluate a document of 1 400 pages in somebody else’s office within a period of 8 days, it indicates that it was not the intention of the education department to give teachers time to study the document and react meaningfully to it. d) In general, the  education department reacted badly to requests from the public for the NCS to be posted to them. e) On the web page of the education department there was a hyperlink to the NCS from the main page. The hyperlink was removed two weeks before the closing date for comment. f) The education department did not take the trouble to make schools aware of the release of the NCS. In a survey of 100 schools in Gauteng in the last week of September, only 3 schools were aware of the NCS and only 2 had seen copies of it.Notwithstanding these  obstacles, there was overwhelming reaction from the public against the NCS. The reaction consisted of thousands of letters to the press, letters to the education department and calls to parliamentarians. All of the large denominations in South Africa strongly criticised the curriculum. After the closing date, on 13 November 2001, public hearings were held, during which organisations could give oral input on the NCS. Although everybody could apply to make representation, the minister was able to choose whom he would allow to make representation. Although the minister said on radio the previous day that everybody would be heard, he only  asked 19 organisations for input. The larger Afrikaans churches and Christian private schools were among those not permitted an opportunity to give input. During the public hearing there were demonstrations against the NCS in Cape Town and Pretoria. In spite of the public reaction, the final NCS was promulgated on 31 May 2002, with no important changes. Some of the most repulsive sections were take out of the learning area Life Skills and hidden away in the learning area Art and Culture. Anyone who did not go through the whole curriculum diligently would not have noticed this subtle shift. Click  here to view submissions, presentations and media releases from that period. 2004 (Gauteng meetings). The Gauteng department of education arranges a series of meetings to try and intimidate parents to register and to demand compliance to a range of irregular demands. Representatives of the Pestalozzi Trust and the Association for Homeschooling attended all the meetings. The officials only wanted to discuss the registration process, and interactive discussion with homeschooling parents was strongly discouraged. 2005 (Department performs internal research). In 2005 the Department of Basic Education (DBE) advertised for tenders for research on home education in South Africa. The budget was  small and the terms of reference very restrictive. A tender by Wits Education Policy Unit was accepted, and they submitted their report in 2008. The research report recommends that "The only option for parents who do not want their children to be taught the national curriculum is to leave the country or send their children for education abroad." 2007 (Home education banned in Germany). In opposition of the prosecution of home schoolers in Germany, the Association for Homeschooling holds a protest at the Deutsche Schule in Pretoria to bring this to the attention of the German community. 2008 (New regulations  for NSC). New regulations on the administration of matric were promulgated. These regulations require that learners must complete Gr. 10 and Gr. 11 in order to be admitted to write the Gr. 12 exam. Whereas it was possible for homelearners to obtain a matric in less than a year at a cost of about R1000, it will now take 3 years at a cost of about R30 000. Due to this increase in duration and cost of the National Senior Certificate, international matric qualifications such as Cambridge (UK) and General Educational Development (USA) became increasingly popular under homeschoolers. 2009 (Policy  revision process starts). In 2009 the Department of Education started the process of revising to Home Education Policy, when Ms. Mapaseka Letho from Department of Education requested Mr. Leendert van Oostrum to provide comments on the current policy and recommendations for revision. This initiative picked up momentum when the 2011 census reported that there were 56 000 home learners. 2010 (Western Cape intimidates homeschoolers & CAPS introduced). The Association for Homeschooling launches an initiative for an independent website on home education. The website "SAHomeschoolers.Org" has since grown to the most comprehensive independent website concerning home schooling in South Africa. Home  Schooling Expos become more commonplace. Since this year there are annual expos in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and George. 2013 (Home education discussed in parliament). According to the results of the 2012 census, there are approximately 57000 home schooling students in South Africa. If all these learners were to be accommodated in schools, 130 schools would be required as well as 2000 teachers. Currently the government is saving approximately R700 million per year because the government is not paying for the education of these children. 2014 (Western Cape issues draft policy). At the start of the year Pestalozzi Trust publishes  an article "Homeschooling running into heavy weather". 2015 (KZN court case). After the meetings in October, it was the intention to have follow-up meetings in January 2015. As the date of the follow-up meeting approached, the meeting was postponed to February 2015, in order to provide more time to the DBE to prepare for the meeting. Two weeks before this meeting, representatives requested that the agenda and working documents be sent to them as a matter of common courtesy. Soon after this representatives were informed that the meeting was postponed indefinitely. Middle June, representatives received another invite for  a meeting on 2 and 3 July, with a proposed agenda and an updated Discussion Document by dr. Trevor Coombe. The representatives were surprised by the updated discussion document. This document confirmed that the DBE was indeed willing to attempt to understand home education, because a number of significant paradigms shifts have been made since the previous Discussion Document that was presented in October 2014. In the preparation for the meeting, the agenda was changed a few times. The Association for Homeschooling managed to reserve more than 90 minutes of the agenda for a screening of the "Class Dismissed" movie . To ensure that statements on the negative consequences of the proposed bill can be proven empirically, homeschooling parents were requested to complete a survey. A total of 2750 parents completed the survey.