Johannesburg - The question of public schools’ rights to formulate their own language and admissions policies was again raised in court on Tuesday, with governing bodies fearing that the government wanted to strip them of such rights.
Pitted against each other were the children’s right to be taught in their mother tongue and the Gauteng Department of Education’s (GDE) constitutional obligation to ensure that the doors of learning were opened for all.
It was a leaked discussion document detailing the department’s plans to tackle overcrowding in schools by turning 124 Afrikaans medium schools into dual medium schools that led to the case before the high court in Joburg.
The Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) brought the urgent application on the basis that launching parallel medium schools, as the policy is referred to in official documents, was in contravention of Section 29 of the constitution – the right to receive education in a language of your choice.
Arguing for Fedsas, Advocate Johan du Toit, SC, also challenged the GDE’s proposed e-platform admission process for public schools, saying it was in contravention of the South African Schools Act, which gives governing bodies the right to formulate admission and language policies.
The e-platform has been proposed as a centralised admissions system to allow parents to apply for admission online, with the department being responsible for distributing lists from online applications to schools.
But it limits school governing bodies from drawing their own lists and implementing their policies.
Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, SC, for the GDE, dismissed Fedsas’s case as one of the “tail wagging the dog”.
“The constitution is paramount. The tail cannot wag the dog as far as language policy is concerned. The department has a duty to ensure access to education for all.”
He denied that Afrikaans schools were being singled out, saying that the same language issues were experienced in townships, where pupils were for years divided based on their home languages.
“How do you as a government, 20 years later, allow Zulus in Jabulani (Soweto) to complain about Sothos coming into their school? You can’t be seen to be only concerned about Zulu or Afrikaans speakers,” Sikhakhane argued.
With “patterns of settlement in South Africa” changing, it was impossible to have single-medium schools as some pupils will be forced to travel long distance to access education when there was a school near their homes.
Some schools were overcrowded, while others had half the pupils they could cater for, so “the government has to deal with the problem of under-utilisation of government resources”.
Sikhakhane said: “The department is in a conundrum because it has to perform its constitutional duty. You have to use the resources of the State in line with the constitution,” he said.
But Judge Gregory Charles Wright ruled in favour of Fedsas, saying “schools are entitled to submit their lists, in so doing, taking into account their admission and language policies”.
The issue of Afrikaans schools being turned into dual-medium schools was set aside pending the finalisation of the discussions.
Fedsas chief executive Paul Colditz welcomed the ruling as it maintains the status quo, while the GDE spokeswoman Phumla Sekhonyane said: “We are still of the view that the language policy should not supercede the right of learners to access education”.