Parliament seeks resolution for education

By Tarryn Le Chat

Parliament of the Republic of South Africa have been seeking to resolve issues within education and other topics by hosting the National Youth Parliament to mark the 30th anniversary of June 16, 1976 uprisings. The main focus was on issues within education itself, such as substance abuse, teacher/learner ratio, and disability, funding for education, language barriers and discrimination in schools. Tsietsi Tolo, chair: select committee on education put these issues forward to members on the committee to come up with resolutions. South African Students Congress says, “Government should take necessary steps to make environments more accessible to disabled students”. A committee member from Gauteng noted that language barriers wouldn’t be solved if they were taught in their ‘mother tongue’ at schools. “This will have a dangerous outcome”, Jolie said. However, the chairperson dismissed these claims saying, “Africans should be taught in their ‘African language’.” Further queries or reports can be sent to the parliament website, http://www.parliament.gov.za/ for the issues that were addressed for the different committees.