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Threatening encroachment on parental sex education rights
Church in the Community - Media Release in the Herald: 7 August 2023
Source: TCN / Daan Botha
Date Added: 2023-08-07
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Freedom of Religion, Issues - Parenting,
Date Added: 2023-08-07
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Freedom of Religion, Issues - Parenting,
I recently attended an insightful and disconcerting talk presented by Michael Swain from Freedom of Religion South Africa (FORSA) on what appears to be an encroachment by the state on parental rights and privileges in the education of our children.
This is my summary of the salient aspects of his talk.
Aristotle is attributed to have said: “give me a child until the age of seven, and I will show you the man.”
Solomon said in Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
The Bible teaches and illustrates that parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children.
Whilst parents may partner with a community or with teachers at schools, they retain the primary right to educate their children according to their own beliefs and values, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, secular, or other.
This inalienable right is part of the right to freedom of religion as protected in our constitution.
In our diverse culture, the role of the state is primarily to safeguard and protect parental rights of all these groups, unless such rights are abused or exercised unconstitutionally.
Protection of parental rights includes protection of freedom of religion, expression, and association in the context of general tolerance amongst different cultures and worldviews. South Africa is a signatory of many international treaties, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (1981), which all protect the rights of parents to choose the religious and moral education and values of their children and these treaties stipulate that the state has a duty to respect and protect these rights.
In terms of the Children’s Act, 2005, these parental rights include the responsibility and right to care for, to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of and to protect the child from exploitation and any other physical, emotional, or moral harm (Sec. 18(2)(a)).
In terms of Chapter 4 of the Education White Paper of the Department of Basic Education (DBE), parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children, have the right to be consulted by the state regarding the form that education should take and are entitled to take part in its governance.
These parental rights include the choice of the cultural or religious basis of education, with due regard for the rights of others or the rights of choice of the growing child.
Public education in post-apartheid South Africa is primarily a partnership between parents and the state.
The state is to provide and maintain an adequate schooling environment and to define age-appropriate educational outcomes.
The rights of parents are primarily represented by school governing bodies (SGBs) which, in essence, exist to: protect parental authority; represent community interests; represent the values of the learner population of each individual school; to make policies that govern the life of the school; and to choose the content of the teaching material that will achieve the required educational outcomes.
It is most disconcerting to note that, despite the above checks and balances parental rights are being threatened by the state in the area of sexual education.
This is a basic and essential part of a parent’s educational right according to their own religion and values and the state cannot enforce any particular ideology without adequate consultation and permission of parents.
It appears that in 2019 an international grant of R500 million was given to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to introduce specific Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) materials in public schools and only after a major public pushback did the DBE concede that parents through SGBs did have the right to refuse and to select alternative content.
Despite this admission by the DBE, South Africa nevertheless ratified an agreement in October 2022 to give the United Nations the authority to roll out a very liberal and explicit CSE content into our public schools, once again in direct contravention of entrenched parental rights to the contrary and without any or adequate consultation with SGBs or parents.
Some 4 000 teachers at pre-schools and pre-primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal have already received training in the DBE’s Early Childhood Education Toolkit, where sex and gender education is taught which conflicts with the views and beliefs of many parents in SA.
This has been rolled out to teachers despite there being no public participation or reasonable consultation with parents or SGBs.
It is time for parents and SGBs to be aware of this developing threat to parental rights and to stand up for the current and future educational needs and rights of our children.
Their future depends on our action and intervention now.
For more details on this developing battle for the minds of our children and how we should respond as parents, please contact FORSA at www.forsa.org.za.
Daan Botha
Biblical training pastor: Harvest Christian Church
This is my summary of the salient aspects of his talk.
Aristotle is attributed to have said: “give me a child until the age of seven, and I will show you the man.”
Solomon said in Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
The Bible teaches and illustrates that parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children.
Whilst parents may partner with a community or with teachers at schools, they retain the primary right to educate their children according to their own beliefs and values, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, secular, or other.
This inalienable right is part of the right to freedom of religion as protected in our constitution.
In our diverse culture, the role of the state is primarily to safeguard and protect parental rights of all these groups, unless such rights are abused or exercised unconstitutionally.
Protection of parental rights includes protection of freedom of religion, expression, and association in the context of general tolerance amongst different cultures and worldviews. South Africa is a signatory of many international treaties, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (1981), which all protect the rights of parents to choose the religious and moral education and values of their children and these treaties stipulate that the state has a duty to respect and protect these rights.
In terms of the Children’s Act, 2005, these parental rights include the responsibility and right to care for, to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of and to protect the child from exploitation and any other physical, emotional, or moral harm (Sec. 18(2)(a)).
In terms of Chapter 4 of the Education White Paper of the Department of Basic Education (DBE), parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children, have the right to be consulted by the state regarding the form that education should take and are entitled to take part in its governance.
These parental rights include the choice of the cultural or religious basis of education, with due regard for the rights of others or the rights of choice of the growing child.
Public education in post-apartheid South Africa is primarily a partnership between parents and the state.
The state is to provide and maintain an adequate schooling environment and to define age-appropriate educational outcomes.
The rights of parents are primarily represented by school governing bodies (SGBs) which, in essence, exist to: protect parental authority; represent community interests; represent the values of the learner population of each individual school; to make policies that govern the life of the school; and to choose the content of the teaching material that will achieve the required educational outcomes.
It is most disconcerting to note that, despite the above checks and balances parental rights are being threatened by the state in the area of sexual education.
This is a basic and essential part of a parent’s educational right according to their own religion and values and the state cannot enforce any particular ideology without adequate consultation and permission of parents.
It appears that in 2019 an international grant of R500 million was given to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to introduce specific Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) materials in public schools and only after a major public pushback did the DBE concede that parents through SGBs did have the right to refuse and to select alternative content.
Despite this admission by the DBE, South Africa nevertheless ratified an agreement in October 2022 to give the United Nations the authority to roll out a very liberal and explicit CSE content into our public schools, once again in direct contravention of entrenched parental rights to the contrary and without any or adequate consultation with SGBs or parents.
Some 4 000 teachers at pre-schools and pre-primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal have already received training in the DBE’s Early Childhood Education Toolkit, where sex and gender education is taught which conflicts with the views and beliefs of many parents in SA.
This has been rolled out to teachers despite there being no public participation or reasonable consultation with parents or SGBs.
It is time for parents and SGBs to be aware of this developing threat to parental rights and to stand up for the current and future educational needs and rights of our children.
Their future depends on our action and intervention now.
For more details on this developing battle for the minds of our children and how we should respond as parents, please contact FORSA at www.forsa.org.za.
Daan Botha
Biblical training pastor: Harvest Christian Church
Source: TCN / Daan Botha
Date Added: 2023-08-07
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Freedom of Religion, Issues - Parenting,
Back to News IndexDate Added: 2023-08-07
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Freedom of Religion, Issues - Parenting,
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