*YCLSA Gauteng Press Statement * October 11, 2013
*YCLSA welcomes the defeat of racial and class prejudices in our schools* The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] in Gauteng has noted, with great joy, the victory in the Constitutional Court on Thursday, 3 October, of the provincial education department over the Rivonia Primary School which practiced learner exclusion. In the 2010 the Gauteng Education Department instructed the school’s principal to accept a wait-listed Grade One pupil after the school refused to accept the learner. The school thereby closed the doors of learning for the pupil, and intransigently denied the learner access to education as a constitutional right. The matter went to various courts, culminating in an appeal at the Supreme Court of Appeal, which, worrying in the extreme, ruled on November 30 last year that the governing body of a public school, and not the provincial education department, had the authority to determine the number of children the school may admit, and that the provincial government had no authority to override a school’s admin policy. The ruling was weird, given that the constitutional obligation of the right to education, the right to learn, rests with the state. In the best interest of our people, the Gauteng Education Department took a right decision to challenge the constitutionality of the ruling made by the Supreme Court of Appeal, to the Constitutional Court, and as the YCLSA we supported the decision. Last week, on Thursday, 3 October the Constitutional Court overturned the ruling made by the Supreme Court of Appeal. The Constitutional Court correctly asserted that the state – in this case the provincial education department – reserves the final say to the number of pupils that can be admitted to a school. The Constitutional Court clearly concluded that while schools governing bodies determine admission policies of their schools, the individual decisions on admissions are taken only *provisionally* at school level “by the principal acting under the authority of the head of” provincial education “department”. In our view, by defying a learner access when the provincial education department instructed that the learner must be admitted, the principal of the Rivonia Primary School, assisted by the school’s governing body, committed an act of insubordination. This cannot be left unattended. When the learner was finally admitted by the school as instructed, the poor pupil was not granted access to classroom and when access was granted it was not smooth. We appeal on the department to act decisively on all these prejudices. As a matter of fact, the ruling by the Constitutional Court applies not only to the Rivonia Primary School, but to the rest of the other schools in the province that have treated learners with prejudices. It is a common practice particularly among schools located in affluent, historically white suburbs which have benefitted from apartheid, such as the Rivonia Primary School, to exercise learner exclusion based on a wide range of prejudicial instruments. This exclusion coalesce around racial and class prejudices. We view the defeat of the Rivonia Primary School as a milestone in challenging the legacy of racial discrimination and persisting class exclusion in our education system, and we congratulate the provincial education department for the work well done. Particularly it is black learners from working class and poor families who are excluded, based on covert instruments partly found in the admission policies of the said schools, including sky-high school fees. As the YCLSA we are determined, through our Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign, to confront discrimination in education. We will continue to work together as a reliable social force with our provincial education department, in tackling all the challenges in the schools system. In January 2014, we are launching the 2014 Chapter of our Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign, which incorporates consistent participation in the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign as led by the education MEC. We will go all out against the practices of discrimination in schools as the window period for applications for 2015 schools calendar are open in the first quarter of 2014. Issued by the YCLSA Gauteng Province For more information contact: Matankana Mothapo YCLSA Gauteng Provincial Spokesperson Cell: 082 7590 900 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
