Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube. | Ayanda Ndamane/ Independent Newspapers
Durban — The coalition of religious, cultural, educational, spirituality and traditional associations, representing over 20 million members of diverse communities have called for an urgent meeting to end pre-primary programmes in what they call an “undermining of children and parental rights”.
This follows the discovery that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) has developed and implemented a Gender-Responsive Pedagogy for Early Childhood Education Toolkit (ECE Toolkit). The ECE Toolkit trains ECD practitioners and pre-primary and primary school educators to promote transgender ideology to young children (ages 0 to 9 years). The programme was financed by a R40 million grant from VVOB, a Belgian organisation, and developed in conjunction with the University of Stellenbosch.
In a joint statement the United Ulama Council of South Africa, the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa, the South African Community of Faith-based Fraternals and Federations, Inkululeko Yesizwe Association, and Freedom of Religion South Africa stated that a major potential source of conflict had developed between them and the DBE.
The coalition has called for an urgent meeting with Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, to review this matter. They are asking for an immediate moratorium on using the ECE Toolkit for teacher training until it has been opened for meaningful public engagement, particularly by parents and school governing body associations.
The statement said that following two meetings, and despite the deep concerns expressed by the coalition, the DBE doubled down on its determination to roll out and implement this highly controversial teacher training in all provinces, and that in a written response, the DBE claimed it has the power to limit parental rights and to supplement, with “constitutional principles”, the values and beliefs that parents are teaching their children.
They also said that the department denied that it is subverting parental rights, and defended its failure to facilitate any meaningful public participation.
According to the education website, the DBE and other South African stakeholders were involved in the development of the toolkit on gender-responsive pedagogy for ECD between 2017 and 2019, and this toolkit is aimed at supporting African early childhood educators and school leaders to ensure a gender-responsive and play-based learning environment.
The DBE stated that as part of the department’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the VVOB – Education for Development, the DBE is receiving technical assistance to contextualise the toolkit to guide the implementation of a gender-responsive pedagogy in early childhood.
The DBE and VVOB, together with the Institute for Life Course Health Research of Stellenbosch University, hosted the initial workshop of contextualisation of the toolkit in March 2020, in Pretoria.
The department said the objective is to arm the curriculum and the way curriculum is delivered in a gender-responsive manner, un-gender and re-gender. Early intervention will assist children to subscribe to the values of equality and healthy gender norms and to grow up freely exploring and developing their unique interests and talents.
With the general elections over, the coalition has again written to Gwarube to emphasise the legal, cultural, and religious basis for its ongoing concerns. It maintains that the DBE fails to understand that the ECE Toolkit will directly impact a child’s education by imposing a single ideological worldview, based upon radical, deeply controversial, scientifically unproven, and medically contentious views on sex and gender.
In so doing,the coalition stated that, it effectively excludes and marginalises – even delegitimises – the beliefs and values of certain (“perhaps the vast majority of”) parents and children. It therefore amounts to a form of state-sanctioned indoctrination of children, which is unacceptable in and of itself, in addition to being potentially very harmful to children.
The coalition’s response also refutes the DBE’s rationale for implementing the ECE Toolkit. The department claims that this training is a central component of the strategy to combat gender-based violence and femicide and to prevent bullying.
The coalition argues that it is counter-intuitive to deliberately blur the lines between the sexes. Teaching small children that you cannot readily distinguish a man from a woman (or vice versa) and that gender is an individual and personal choice is certain to cause them deep and abiding confusion.
The coalition requests transparency regarding the mandate, funding (and related conditions of funding) of the Directorate: Social Inclusion and Equity in Education unit, that has already been established within the DBE and is driving the roll-out and implementation of the ECE Toolkit teacher training programme, and the identity of the key external partners of this unit, and its accountability mechanisms.
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