Cape Town - The closure of 20 schools across the Western Cape has failed the children of South Africa, Western Cape High Court Judge Siraj Desai remarked during an interim interdict application to halt the closures.
The governing bodies of 18 schools and the SA Democratic Teachers Union have turned to the High Court to seek an urgent interdict to stop the closure of 18 schools, prevent the department from moving or transferring their pupils and teachers and from moving any of their movable property.
Education MEC Donald Grant and the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) are opposing the application.
Initially, Grant announced that 27 schools would be closed but a decision was taken to keep seven schools open.
Eighteen of the 20 remaining schools took the matter to court on Tuesday. A full bench of the High Court comprising of Judge Desai, Judge Dennis Davis and Judge Elizabeth Baartman is hearing the application.
“We failed our learners first when we fired our teachers in 1994, then we closed our FET colleges. Are we going to fail our learners further?” Judge Desai asked during arguments in support of the interdict on Tuesday.
Judge Desai commented that the “mass” school closures – executed within six months – were done in “undue haste”. He referred to other school closures, which took up to five years for the process to be finalised, and questioned why the closures could not be “measured”.
The court heard that the process started in April this year when departmental officials recommended to Grant which schools should be closed. The following month, the MEC submitted letters to the schools notifying them they had been identified for closure. In October, the final closure was announced.
Advocate Normal Arendse SC for the schools, said the schools that were up for closure were the “heart” of the small communities in which they were situated. Just four of the schools were in urban areas and the remainder were in rural areas and were between 32 and 64 years old.
While advocate Edward Fagen, for the department and the MEC, has not yet been given an opportunity to argue, Grant said in court papers that he had made all his decisions with restraint and was confident they were in the best interest of the pupils.
But Judge Davis said he failed to understand whether the decision to close the schools was in the children’s best interest.
Arendse argued on Tuesday that fair processes were not carried out when public hearings on the closures were held. He said the same officials who recommended the closure of the schools presided over the hearings.
“These officials are from the same district so they already formed an opinion (on whether the school should be closed).”
Meanwhile parents, principals and children from the affected communities as well as individuals and groups opposed to the closures protested outside the court on Tuesday morning.
“WCED abandon plan to close schools” and “Keep our schools open”, stated some of their posters.
The group sang freedom songs on the steps of the court before court proceedings started.
Fagen is expected to argue on Wednesday. – Additional reporting Ilse Fredericks - Cape Argus