The Congress of South African Students (Cosas) says it will embark on demonstrations and marches to pressure President Cyril Ramaphosa to remove Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube over her approach to implementing the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act.

Gwarube is from the Democratic Alliance (DA), and Cosas is affiliated to the African National Congress (ANC).

The student organisation issued the threat during a media briefing in Johannesburg this week, with its secretary-general, Onesongo Matikinca, accusing Gwarube of failing to support the full implementation of legislation, which was signed into law in September 2024.

The dispute centres particularly on provisions dealing with school admissions and language policies.

Gwarube and the DA have objected to various clauses of the legislation, particularly clauses 4 and 5 of the Act in their current form. These amended provisions on school language and admission policy, effectively handing it to provincial education heads. Her position has placed her at odds with Cosas, which has demanded that it be implemented as a matter of urgency.

Matikinca also criticised Gwarube for not attending the signing ceremony where President Cyril Ramaphosa formally enacted the legislation.

“The president had more reason to fire the minister the day he signed the Bela Act because the minister declared war on black people the day she decided not to even attend that signing,” he said.

He accused the minister of opposing measures that Cosas believes are intended to expand access and promote greater equality between pupils in historically disadvantaged communities, and those attending schools in more affluent areas.

Cosas says it has developed a programme of action that will involve young people in protests aimed at putting pressure on Ramaphosa to act.

“Cosas has a fully-fledged programme of action, that will be based on demonstrations and marches, that will ensure that the president gets enough pressure to remove the minister,” Matikinca said.

He also suggested that the Bela dispute had wider political implications ahead of the 2029 national elections.

Matikinca argued that delays in implementing the Act could allow political opponents to portray themselves as defenders of disadvantaged pupils, while potentially creating an opportunity for the DA to advance its own education policies, if the ANC performs poorly in the election.

He rejected the idea that regulations could delay implementation of provisions already contained in the Act.

“We are surprised by this behaviour because these things are happening under the president’s nose and the president sits idly by doing nothing about them,” he said.

According to Matikinca, the legislation contains implementation deadlines and Cosas is concerned that those relating to admissions have not been acted on nearly a year later.

The approach of the ANC and its affiliates on Bela is revealing. Claiming to represent learners in South Africa’s poorer communities, Cosas has chosen to target the minority of well-functioning public schools, doing so in confrontational racial terms – although many of the schools in question are now, in any event, overwhelmingly attended by black learners.

Provisions for giving Members of Executive Councils (MECs) ultimate authority over language policy is widely perceived as an attempt to force English onto an even smaller minority of Afrikaans-medium schools. This leaves the impression of being driven less by pedagogy than by nationalism. (In Gauteng, premier and former education MEC Panyaza Lesufi took a particular interest in pressuring Afrikaans-medium schools.)

However, as this newspaper has previously reported, only around 30% of Grade 1-3 learners are able to read at the level expected of 10 them and only one in matriculants passed maths with 50% or more.

These failing are most notable in schools serving poor communities, invariably those dominated by the ANC’s aligned teacher union. This has helped to disincentivise and undermine efforts at school reform where they are needed the most.

Suburban, “Model C”, Afrikaans-medium, or simply successful schools are an easy target. There is, however, no prospect that, even if filled well beyond capacity, such higher-performing schools could cater for anything other than a small proportion of South Africa’s learners. The matter is a political distraction from the educational crisis – and ensures that the crisis persists.