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        <span>Hoërskool Overvaal’s legal bid to stop 55 pupils from attending the school to be heard urgently</span>
        
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            11 January 2018 - 15:14
            
                <span id="gmail-authors" class="gmail-heading-author">Sipho Mabena</span>
            
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                <p>The Gauteng department of education has failed to 
convince the High Court in Pretoria to throw out the Hoërskool 
Overvaal’s legal bid to prevent 55 pupils from attending the school‚ for
 lack of urgency.</p>
<p>The department had argued that the school would suffer no harm if the
 55 Grade 8 learners were admitted‚ saying the children posed no threat 
to the school governing body‚ which brought the application on behalf of
 the Afrikaans-medium school.</p>
<p>Kumbirai Toma‚ the department’s advocate‚ further argued‚ albeit in 
vain‚ that the department had put the necessary resources‚ English 
educators and learning material in place to ensure that the learners 
were not a burden to the school come Wednesday‚ January 17.</p>
<p>"Everything that the learners need has been provided. .. it is a sad 
scenario that the kids are denied access to the school‚" he said.</p>
<p>Toma said the school governing body also failed to give proper 
reasons as to why the review application could not be heard in a normal 
court.</p>
<p>But Judge Bill Prinsloo said Toma failed to make a case for lack of 
urgency‚ ruling that the matter would be heard in an urgent court.</p>
<p>Earlier‚ the school’s lawyer‚ advocate Albert Lamey‚ argued in reply 
that it was in the interest of the 55 learners that the matter be heard 
in an urgent court.</p>
<p>"Any delay is to their detriment‚" he said.</p>
<p>The Afrikaans-medium school in Vereeniging approached the court to 
review and set aside the department’s instruction that the school admit 
the 55 pupils despite the school’s insistence that it had no capacity to
 do so.</p>
<p>Judge Prinsloo indicated he wanted to deliver judgment on the matter without delay‚ possibly by Friday.</p>
            

        

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</div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies                     <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone:  (215) 898-7475<br>Fax:  (215) 573-2138                                      <br><br>Email:  <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a>    <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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