Court lambasts WC Education Department
The Western Cape High Court (Cape Town) has ordered the province’s Department of Education to develop a proper management plan to deal with the crisis of late admissions at its schools within six months.
GroundUp reports that Judges Babalwa Mantame and Mokgoatji Dolamo also found the department’s failure to plan for late placements violated the Constitution.
Acting Judge Fareed Moosa, who made up the full Bench, supported these orders, but dissented on one finding that declared a clause in the admission policy to unfairly discriminate against late applicants on the basis of race, poverty level, place of birth and social origin.
The application was brought by Equal Education and five learners affected by a lack of planning, which had left some students excluded from schools for two terms, and in other instances, the entire academic year.
The education authorities opposed the application, denying that there was a systemic problem.
They said the admissions policy dealt adequately with late and extremely late applications and the procedure to be followed.
But they also submitted that extremely late applications were unpredictable and often required the department to deploy additional resources to schools, such as mobile classes. These challenges led to unavoidable delays.
They also blamed parents and caregivers for failing to adhere to the procedures.
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.
