Rivonia school demands apology

03 December 2012 - 02:02 By KATHARINE CHILD
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Rivonia Primary School. File photo
Rivonia Primary School. File photo

The governing body of Rivonia Primary School will ask the Gauteng department of education today to withdraw the disciplinary action against school principal Carol Drysdale, who was found guilty of insubordination.

If the department refuses, lawyer Paul Lategan, a member of the governing body, said that the body would ask the high court to order the department "to expunge the disciplinary hearing".

Drysdale was found guilty of insubordination at an internal hearing for refusing the department's order to admit a child who was 14th on the school's waiting list. She acted in accordance with the wishes of her school governing body.

But, in February last year, the child was forced into the school by department head Boy Ngobeni.

On Friday, Supreme Court of Appeal judge Azar Cachalia found it was not Drysdale who had erred but the government.

He said the department's instruction to Drysdale to admit the pupil was unlawful, and that it should not have frogmarched the child into the school ahead of other pupils on the waiting list.

He said he hoped the department would "graciously withdraw" the charges against Drysdale.

But yesterday the department's spokesman, Charles Phahlane, would not comment on whether the department would apologise to Drysdale.

He said "the department is still studying the judgment".

Cachalia found the department's conduct "unlawful" and its "playing of the race card . disturbing".

He found that schools' governing bodies could determine admission policy within the law.

The judgment gives parents, who often pay extra for schooling, influence over the running of the school.

Cachalia said the department has used the "ugly spectre of race to hide its unlawful conduct".

He ruled: "It would not be out of place to observe that I find the approach of Mr Ngobeni and the department's officials in this case most disturbing.

"There was not one bit of evidence to suggest that the school has ever refused admission to a child - including this child who happens to be black - on the grounds of race or has unfairly discriminated against any child on this basis.

"The school's refusal to admit the learner ... came about solely because her application was far down the waiting list."

The state argued that, because Rivonia Primary parents could pay for extra classrooms and extra teachers they should take in extra pupils, but Cachalia ruled that this was "perverse" as it "amounted to expropriation of after-tax money".

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