Homeschooling in South Africa

Most of the content comes directly from primary sources and has not been documented anywhere yet: 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.

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.

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.

This led to a campaign being launched by home school leaders like Leendert van Oostrum, Graham Shortridge and Kate Durham with the HSLDA.

[6] Thousands of home schoolers in the USA wrote letters to the South African embassy in the US in support of this campaign.

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.

The Pestalozzi Trust advises home schoolers that the policy is in direct conflict with the SA Schools Act, and therefore not enforceable.

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.

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 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.”

In the learning area of Social Science, the French Huguenots, the British settlers and the Great Trek are not addressed.

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.

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.

[10] 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.

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.

To ensure that statements on the negative consequences of the proposed bill can be proven empirically, homeschooling parents were requested to complete a survey.