A parent of a pupil at a top Cape Town school is accusing the school of purging pupils who are not performing well.
South Peninsula High is one of the top-performing schools in the province and in 2007 received R60 000 from the Western Cape education department for the best improvement in matric maths higher grade marks and for a consistently high matric pass rate.
But a grandfather of a Grade 9 pupil at the school accused the school of discrimination, saying it was forcing poor performers out.
He said his granddaughter had passed Grade 9 in 2007 and was due to start Grade 10 in 2008, but a letter had been sent to their home saying she was not welcome back at the school in 2008. They were not given any reasons for the "expulsion".
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"We think the principal is trying to preserve the school for top performers. He was in the newspapers recently saying they are targeting a 100 percent matric pass rate," said the grandfather.
The pupil's sister told the Cape Argus that although her sister had passed, she had not done well and had been given a condoned pass to Grade 10.
She said the school's letter stated that her sister would struggle in Grade 10 and advised her to go to a Further Education and Training College to continue her studies.
The pupil has now registered with a FET College in Muizenberg.
School principal Brian Isaacs defended the school's actions, saying it was not purging poor performers but was only giving a wake-up call to both parents and misbehaving pupils.
"We obviously want our pupils to do well and want to produce quality children," said Isaacs.
"But when children misbehave we send letters to parents advising them that maybe a change of school might help (with the behaviour). It's merely to give a wake-up call to the parent and the child."
Isaacs explained that misbehaving had nothing to do with poor performance in class but pertained to bad attitude, ill-discipline and non-cooperation by pupils.
The pupil's mother denied that her child had any discipline problems.
"The only problem we know about is her poor grasp of maths and we think that is the reason they don't want her at the school.
"It's the first time we've heard about unruly behaviour. We were never once called to the school because of the child's poor behaviour or attitude," said the mother.
She said the letter, which had arrived two weeks into the school holidays, had stated: "Make other arrangements for your child next year."
- This article was originally published on page 5 of Cape Argus on January 10, 2008
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