The Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown) has certified a class action which, if it succeeds, could see the department paying out R500m to hundreds of teachers who believe they have been short-changed on their salaries since 2010. But, notes a Daily Dispatch report, this significant legal victory by the Legal Resources Centre acting on behalf of the teachers, may prove hollow unless those teachers opting into the class action can prove their case has not prescribed.

The seven teachers who launched the application on their own behalf and on behalf of their colleagues who have yet to opt in to the class, failed at this hurdle as well as on other technicalities. The seven, who had worked at schools in Port Elizabeth and Stutterheim, failed in their own High Court bid to force the department to pay them the difference in salary between what they would have been paid if they had been employed by the department and the comparatively tiny salaries they were paid by school governing bodies.

While Judge Clive Plasket agreed that the class action should be certified, he dismissed the application of the individual seven teachers on the basis that they had not brought their claims within the required three years.

Plasket also said the seven teachers had failed to give notice of the application to the Education Department in terms of the Legal Proceedings Act. He dismissed their application for condonation for late filing of this notice as he said that, even on their own version, their claims had prescribed.

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