[lg policy] South Africa: Mpumalanga Pursues Afrikaans-Only Battle Against Ermelo School

[Harold Schiffman]

South Africa: Mpumalanga Pursues Afrikaans-Only Battle Against Ermelo School
Ernest Mabuza
21 August 2009

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      Johannesburg — THE Mpumalanga education department yesterday
argued that the refusal by the governing body of Hoërskool Ermelo to
change the school's language policy and its insistence on retaining
Afrikaans as a medium of instruction discriminated against other
pupils on grounds of language. The department went to the
Constitutional Court yesterday, asking it to overturn a Supreme Court
of Appeal judgment in March which stated that the governing body, and
not the department, had exclusive power to determine the language
policy of an existing school.

In January 2007, the head of department withdrew the function of
determining the language policy from the Hoërskool Ermelo governing
body in order to accommodate 13 pupils who wanted to be taught in
English. The governing body went to the North Gauteng High Court in
Pretoria in September 2007 to review the decision. Its application was
dismissed in the high court but upheld in the appeal court. The
department's advocate, Bantubonke Tokota SC, yesterday told the court
that the governing body had failed to revisit its language policy for
years. By not taking into account that circumstances had changed, it
had failed to perform its functions in relation to the language
policy.

Tokota said what was paramount in the department head's mind was that
all schools in the Ermelo district were overcrowded at the beginning
of 2007 and Hoërskool Ermelo was not. He argued that the department
head had the power to withdraw the language policy function from the
school governing body when the body was failing in its duties.
Wim Trengove SC, for the governing body and the school, said the
ultimate issue the court had to decide was whether the head of
department acted lawfully when he imposed a new language policy.

"The only issue is whether the remedy adopted by the head of
department to introduce the new language policy was lawful; whether he
had the power to adopt the remedy that he did. We say he did not."
Trengove said the department was aware of the classroom shortage
crisis in Ermelo in January 2006 when other schools in the area were
"bursting at the seams". Trengove said the department did nothing
about the situation.

He said the department wrote a letter to the schools in August 2006
asking for suggestions on how to solve the problem. While the schools
provided suggestions , the department did not act on any of them ,
Trengove said. The department had a duty to address the problem and it
did not do so. The department did not engage with the governing body,
even if it had wanted to persuade the school to become a parallel-
medium school. "They did not do anything about it," Trengove said.

Judgment was reserved.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200908210509.html
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