MEETING WITH BASIC EDUCATION – Phillip Doubell
On the 02nd of September 2019 myself, Natascha and Hayley met with MEC for EC Education, Mr Fundile Gade, and his Chief of Staff at the Department offices in Zwelitsha
Hayley presented a printed PowerPoint presentation where she discussed home education and pointed out the differences between home education and cottage schooling.
While I spoke, they listened respectfully and Mr Gade read through the whole presentation while I was speaking, it seemed. They were definitely more interested in the aspects of illegal schools, the point raised by the presentation. Mr Gade is a man of few words, but I could tell that he was surprised that there is this bustling black education market right under his nose!
They did not seem they had a clear perspective on the differences between cottage schools and homeschooling. I referred specifically to the definitions in law (which, thankfully, are also included in the PowerPoint booklet.) It seemed like they had never heard of the possibility that learners could go through their whole school careers without having anything to do with CAPS (eg. Cambridge, GED, etc.) They kept asking how learners who are outside the system would “get back in”, so to speak. I had to point out that they don’t ever have to. It was clear that Basic Education does not have an understanding of Home Education and how this is being implemented.
I ended off by emphasizing that we are not there to tell them how to run their department, but allies. That we would like to work with them and meet with them again. They also indicated that they would like to have a follow-up meeting with us, once they have run our information by other relevant parties within the department. After which we thanked them and left.