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<span>Afrikaans-only policy of Hoërskool Overvaal means it’s effectively a ‘white school’</span>
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06 February 2018 - 17:27
<span id="gmail-authors" class="gmail-heading-author">Ernest Mabuza</span>
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<a class="gmail-image" href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pUxijbdkO80RFWhIIcw0NygbE5jDxT6Iv3IqaUR9WvzJ6arsih9mZkT6SUyzZdt7jPm-0wGKpP76cU3dgCHr0ZdYh9KX4mM=s1200" style="padding-top:66.6667%">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pUxijbdkO80RFWhIIcw0NygbE5jDxT6Iv3IqaUR9WvzJ6arsih9mZkT6SUyzZdt7jPm-0wGKpP76cU3dgCHr0ZdYh9KX4mM=s750" alt="Irate parents react to the judgement to set aside the decision by the Gauteng department of education to admit 55 learners to be taught in english into Hoërskool Overvaal. Picture: ALAISTER RUSSELL">
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Irate parents react to the judgement to set
aside the decision by the Gauteng department of education to admit 55
learners to be taught in english into Hoërskool Overvaal. Picture:
ALAISTER RUSSELL
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<p>The governing body of Hoërskool Overvaal attempted to
control the admission of new learners to the school‚ insisting that no
learners may be admitted unless they submit to Afrikaans-only
instruction.</p><p>As a result‚ despite the composition of the local
community surrounding the school‚ the school remains effectively a white
school. These are the submissions the Gauteng department of education
has made to the Constitutional Court.</p><p>The department is seeking
leave to appeal against an order of the Pretoria High Court last month‚
which set aside the department’s instruction to the school to admit 55
learners who wished to be taught in English.</p><p>In an affidavit filed
with the Constitutional Court on Monday‚ Gauteng education head of
department Edward Mosuwe said Overvaal was a public school with duties
to the community in which it was situated. He said the school’s
governing body had thus far insisted it must be a single-medium
Afrikaans language school.</p><p>"As a result‚ more than 20 years after the advent of democracy it remains an almost exclusively white school."</p><p>Mosuwe
said the department maintained that the school had excess classroom
capacity relative to neighbouring public schools. According to Mosuwe,
since before the 2016 school admissions‚ there had been a demand from
predominantly "African" residents within the immediate vicinity of
Overvaal for the school to accommodate learners in its feeder area who
wanted to be taught in English.</p><p>The department concluded that
Overvaal had the capacity to accommodate the 55 learners who qualified
for admission to the school in terms of the admission regulations made
under the Gauteng Schools Education Act.</p><p>Mosuwe said the High
Court decision involved important constitutional issues of procedure and
substance relating to‚ among other things‚ whether issues of language
could be used to deny learners admission to a public school in Gauteng.
He argued that, in the past‚ the area in which the school was situated
was a predominantly white Afrikaans area‚ but that this had changed
since 1994 and the area was now dominated by non-Afrikaans speaking
persons.</p><p>There was now demand for the school to open up to English
learners as two other English-instruction schools in the area were
overcrowded. According to Mosuwe, the demand was not for Afrikaans
instruction to cease at the school‚ only for it not to be exclusive.</p><p>The
Gauteng admission regulations expressly prohibited unfair
discrimination on the grounds of language and provided for a system of
admissions that was dictated to by location‚ and not by language policy.
Mosuwe said in terms of the South African School Act‚ the powers of a
public school governing body over admissions and language policies were
subject to any applicable provincial law. "The admissions policy or
language policy of Hoërskool Overvaal accordingly could not prevail over
the admission regulations."</p><p>The department has filed a similar
application in the High Court seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme
Court of Appeal against the judgment of Judge Bill Prinsloo. It has
indicated it would not pursue that application unless the Constitutional
Court application is rejected.</p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="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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