Dear Mr Lekota

I would like to request clarity on the position of Cope regarding basic education and language of tuition, bearing in mind the recent cuts to provincial infrastructure budgets.

On the one hand it is a matter of deep shame to live in a country where school children die in pit latrines, and mental patients die of hunger. Provincial infrastructure then seems the worst possible area in which to cut expenditure in order to accommodate the losses incurred by corruption.

My further personal concern arises from being a parent in a province where Afrikaans schools are singled out for being bullied into bilingual schooling. In the Overvaal matter, the prominent ANC, DA and EFF speakers seemed equally keen to assume the very worst about all Afrikaans parents and schools. This while I have to pay from my own pocket to give my children an introduction to isiZulu, because the provincial department abolished the offering of three languages at primary level.

My two questions:

1. If Cope were to hold a swing vote in Gauteng or another province, how would you work to realise the ideal of access to quality basic education for all? And 2. How would your plan support the right of parents to exercise choice about the language of tuition in basic education (or oppose this)?

(I have a number of focused policy suggestions, if you wanted to consider this at all.)

Warm regards,
Liela Groenewald