CONTROVERSIAL anti-immigration group Operation Dudula says it will be deploying its members across the country to schools in a bid to prevent children of foreign nationals being admitted before South Africans.
Operation Dudula deputy national organiser Che Serobedi announced that the organisation has directed its members to go to all schools in their wards to help local parents register.
”No foreign learners must be allocated any learning space in our public schools before South African learners are allocated classes,” the group stated.
Its plans come as IOL reported that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) informed its officials that undocumented foreign nationals are not required to produce any form of identification before registering for admission at any school in the country.
DBE director-general Mathanzima Mweli said the department had received complaints from civil society organisations about learners being denied admission to schools or prevented from registering and writing the 2024 final national senior certificate examinations due to their failure to, among others, produce identity documents or birth certificates or, in the case of foreign learners, asylum seekers’ permits.
But Operation Dudula has slammed the decision, saying foreigners were allocated classes even when South African parents have applied online.
Serobedi said they were against the recently promulgated Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act as it allowed foreign nationals to enrol their children in schools without presenting any of the required documents.
In terms of the Bela Act, to which President Cyril Ramaphosa assented in September and came into immediate effect in its entirety last month, any learner whose parent or guardian has not provided any required documents, whether of the learner or such adult person acting on behalf of the learner, during the application for admission, shall nonetheless be allowed to attend school.
Serobedi likened the Bela Act to the government legalising illegal activities.
”We feel like we are no longer citizens of South Africa [because] foreigners are enjoying [rights] more than us as South Africans,” he complained.
Serobedi allayed any fears that there would be violence when schools reopen across the country on Wednesday as Operation Dudula attempts to enforce its directive in all nine provinces.
”We are not fighting, when we get to the schools we engage with principals and district directors,” he said.
According to Serobedi, the government keeps mentioning its international obligations to foreign nationals in the country yet there are South African children not allocated classes every year.
”Firstly, allocate South Africans in schools then compromise and allocate the others but with proper documents,” he explained.
The Gauteng provincial education department has extended the operation of its contact centre from Saturday, January 11 until January 30 to deal with all queries relating to the online admissions application process for the 2025 academic year.
By the end of last year, thousands of grades one and eight pupils were still unplaced in Gauteng and the province’s education MEC Matome Chiloane promised that no learner would be without a classroom in 2025.