Ruling affirms right to safe and decent schools
The Makangwane School Governing Body (SGB) has been vindicated in the recent judgment delivered by Limpopo High Court (Polokwane) Judge Makgutla Semenya, says Section27’s Zukiswa Pikoli, in an analysis of the judgment on the law centre’s site.
In the case of School Governing Body of Makangwane Secondary School v the MEC of the Executive Council of the Limpopo Department of Education and Others, the judge held that the persistent failure by the Limpopo Department of Education to fix the dilapidated and dangerous infrastructure at the school violated the rights to dignity, equality and basic education of the learners at the school.
Semenya declared that the department’s failure for more than a decade to take swift appropriate action to address the unsafe conditions at the school and to provide adequate infrastructure and school furniture to the school was unconstitutional and unlawful.
Pikoli notes that in June 2018, Section27 – representing the SGB of the school – instituted an urgent application requiring that the department provide the school with mobile classrooms and furniture by July 2018. Prior to this, lessons at the school were irregular or did not occur at all because of the poor state of the school buildings.
In granting an immediate remedy for the mobile classrooms and furniture, the court ordered the department to ‘engage meaningfully’ with the SGB for a ‘permanent solution’ to the inadequate facilities at the school and to ‘formulate and begin developing a fully costed plan to give effect to this permanent solution by 30 September 2018.’
At a second hearing in October 2018, Semenya focused on the narrow issue of the lawfulness of the department’s conduct. Pikoli says Semenya’s finding that such conduct was indeed unconstitutional and unlawful is significant because ‘it sends a signal to the department to take more seriously the plight of poor learners struggling to learn under the most appalling conditions’.
She adds that in light of the latest judgment ‘that so poignantly demands a respect for the rights of Makangwane learners, we hope that any permanent solution on which the department embarks on includes a proper consideration of the concerns of the SGB regarding the safety of Makangwane learners’.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
