While a group of independent Afrikaans Christian schools and some home-schooling parents have asked the Pretoria High Court this week to declare they are not bound by the national education curriculum or policy on religion, education authorities maintain these are binding on everyone.
The Beweging vir Christelike-Volkseie Onderwys (BCVO), the CVO School in Pretoria and two sets of parents - the applicants are named as Gysbert van Rensburg and Tina van Deventer - attacked three notices issued by the education minister.
These were the revised national curriculum for pupils in Grades R to 9, the national curriculum statement for Grade 10 to 12 and the national policy on religion and education.
The group asked Judge Cynthia Pretorius to declare these policy statements not legally binding on them as they were only statements and not legislation.
They wanted the court also to declare that there was no legally binding national curriculum or procedure for the evaluation of pupils’ performance.
SJ du Plessis, SC, for the applicants, said the dispute arose because the minister asserted that the curriculum and prescribed religious education were binding on all schools - including independent and home schools.
He said the applicants would dispute this as these documents were merely policy documents, not binding legislation. Du Plessis said the education minister did not have the authority to bind independent schools to these policies.
The minister also did not acknowledge the right of parents to choose the type of education they believed would be in the interests of their children, he said.
Learning outcomes did not prescribe content or method, he argued.
It was important that independent schools, parents involved in home schooling and other concerned parties obtain legal clarification of their position by way of a declaratory order, Du Plessis said.
It was argued that these independent and home schools subscribed to the constitution as they did not discriminate on the grounds of race, they were registered with the state, and they maintained standards not inferior to those set by public schools.
In fact, the court was told, the standards at CVO schools were much higher that those at public schools.
Du Plessis said parents were the best evaluators of what was in the best interests of their children - especially regarding their education and religion.
As things now stood, he said, these children would not be able to gain access to South African universities without Umalusi accreditation.
Julian Dreyer SC, for the education authorities, said the court should not entertain the application as it had been launched years after the notices regarding the curriculum had been issued.
While it was difficult to quantify the costs involved in providing and implementing the new curricula, it was obvious that vast sums - probably hundreds of millions of rand - had been spent in achieving this.
Also, countless hours were spent in training educators and in the development of resources.
The applicants had had the opportunity to object to the curricula in the development and implementation stages, but had not done so, Dreyer said.
The curricula were binding on all educators.
“If an educational institution does not comply with the minimum outcomes and standards in the curricula, its pupils will not be able to be promoted to successive grades to obtain the National Senior Certificate,” Dreyer said.
Judgment was reserved. - Pretoria News