School legal wrangle headed for second day

A legal wrangle between a Vereeniging Afrikaans school and the Gauteng education department over the admission of English learners is headed for a second day in the High court in Pretoria on Friday.

Hoërskool Overvaal approached the court on an urgent basis to review and set aside the department’s instruction that the school admit 55 Grade 8 learners from the area.

Advocate Albert Lamey‚ who represents the school and its governing body‚ said the department’s instruction — without any consideration for the school’s language and capacity — was unlawful and unfair.

He argued that when the district education director instructed the principal of the school to admit the learners‚ the department had trumped Overvaal’s language policy.

Lamey said the Constitutional Court had ruled in a similar matter that a school could not be forced‚ against its language policy‚ to admit English learners when its medium of instruction was Afrikaans.

“You cannot‚ by way of instruction‚ negate policy … you cannot‚ unilaterally‚ issue an instruction to force something that is against policy and capacity of the school‚” he charged.

Lamey said applications for admission had ended in October last year‚ saying the department had known then that the learners had not been admitted anywhere but had waited until December to instruct the school to admit the learners.

He said the department did not reply to Overvaal’s representations that the school had no space or capacity to admit the learners.

The department’s lawyer‚ Kumbirai Toma‚ is expected to reply to the school’s submissions when the matter resumes on Friday.

Steve Mabona‚ a spokesperson for the department‚ has denied that the school had no space or capacity to admit the learners‚ saying the school currently has 621 learners and evidence shows it can take over 800.

The department also maintains that all necessary arrangements had been made to accommodate the learners‚ through the provision of an English teacher‚ furniture and learning material.

With the school opening on Wednesday‚ Judge Bill Prinsloo said he wanted to decide on the matter speedily so that all parties could go into the weekend knowing the fate of the learners.