[lg policy] South Africa: Schools take Education MEC to court

[Harold Schiffman]

Schools take Education MEC to court
Ndileka Lujabe 2017-01-11 17:20
Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi. Picture: Cornel van Heerden

Two Afrikaans high schools in Pretoria have applied to interdict Gauteng
Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi from changing their language policies.

Hoërskool Montana and Hoërskool Overkruin have resisted the Gauteng
Department Education’s request to take in more English-speaking pupils.

The schools saw this instruction as Lesufi interfering with their language
and admission policies.

Both schools, predominantly Afrikaans, say the matter is not necessarily
about language policy but a question of capacity as they have limited space
to accommodate English-speaking learners.

The department says it approached the schools in December 2016 with the
request to accommodate more pupils.

Last year the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the Education
Department over language policies, saying admissions shouldn’t be racially
based.

At the time, the department was in court
<http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Lesufi-Afrikaans-schools-use-language-to-create-enclaves-20150527>
following an urgent application by the Federation of Governing Bodies of
South African Schools, which said it was preventing the department from
interfering with School Governing Body preserves of language and admission
policies.

The court ruled
<http://ewn.co.za/2015/05/27/Education-MEC-prepared-to-appeal-SGB-language-ruling>that
schools had the right to prepare and submit waiting lists, and that such
lists may be informed by the schools’ internal admission and language
policies.

The department maintains that both schools knew about recommendations to
accommodate more pupils since July last year, and did nothing about it
until now.

http://city-press.news24.com/News/schools-take-education-mec-to-court-20170111


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