Cape Town - The Constitutional Court judgment, which focused on school admissions regulations in Gauteng, will probably impact significantly on the education system across South Africa, the Governing Body Foundation has said.
In addition, Equal Education said the decision should also prompt governing bodies and provincial education departments to re-examine their admissions policies.
Friday’s judgment was a victory for the Gauteng Education Department and, according to Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi, “finally broke the backbone of apartheid planning”.
“Today, all our schools belong to all our children, NOT the privileged few!
“The judgment empowers us, as government, to declare new feeder zones, thus burying the transitional 5km radius!
“No parent will be asked a salary slip before their children are admitted in our schools,” Lesufi wrote in a Facebook post.
The Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) had challenged the validity of amendments made to regulations around pupil admissions in Gauteng, which were promulgated in 2012.
The court found the regulations were rational, reasonable and justifiable and not in conflict with national legislation.
The court directed the MEC to set feeder zones for Gauteng within 12 months.
It held as rational a regulation which disallows prospective schools from requesting confidential information from a pupil’s current school.
According to the Governing Body Foundation, the case was, in a technical sense, all about the admissions regulations in Gauteng. “(But) it is not quite as straightforward as that, though, and the judgment addressed sufficient matters of principle for the effects to be widely felt right across the country over a period of time.”
It said one of the matters of principle that were clearly either made obligatory or outlawed in terms of the judgment, related to the powers of parents and governing bodies.
The Foundation said that according to the judgment, “it is now settled that even though there are certain powers entrusted to the governing bodies of schools, the power does not exist in a vacuum, and should be exercised in accordance with the applicable provincial law”.
“Going forward, public schools will more and more be expected to take into account thedisparities in the education system characterised by the legacy of apartheid’; to help reform the public education system’; and to be governed in a manner that caters for more than only the interests of the current parents and learners.”
Asked what the impact on the education scene in the Western Cape would be, the foundation’s national chief executive, Time Gordon said: “Not too negatively, we believe.
“This province has been able to steer clear of the belligerence and confrontation that has bedevilled relations between the education departments, schools, unions and governing body associations in most other provinces.
“Our differences and difficulties have to a large extent been handled in a sensible, collaborative and adult manner, and we are confident that this will be the case as and when any changes are introduced locally.”
He indicated that, in time, the effect of the approaches required of schools by the judgment would undeniably have an impact, particularly on “our high-income, generously-resourced and selective-intake schools”.
“Some of us have perhaps become a little too self-centred and selfish over the years, and we will need to learn to become more generous, more public-spirited and more transformational in all we do.
“We will also in some of our wealthiest schools have to learn to do more with less. But that can surely not be all bad in the big scheme of things.”
Tshepo Motsepe, general secretary of advocacy group Equal Education, said the judgment should prompt governing bodies and provincial education departments to relook regulations on pupil admissions.
Its submissions focused on the discriminatory effect of determining school feeder zones based on the proximity of a pupil to a school, considering the legacy of spatial injustice under apartheid.
The Western Cape Education Department has previously indicated it had not determined feeder zones, but that governing bodies may determine their own admissions policies.
Asked if changes in terms of admissions would be considered in the province, Jessica Shelver, spokeswoman for Education MEC Debbie Schafer, said: “We will study the contents (of the judgment) and provide comment once we have had the opportunity to do so.”
Jaco Deacon, deputy chief executive of Fedsas, said that while the federation was disappointed, its priority was to act within the stipulations of the constitution.
Cape Argus