Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga's "long history" of broken promises, many allegedly made to Parliament, to supply norms and standards for school infrastructure has drawn Equal Education back to court.
Representing the rights organisation, the Legal Resources Centre filed papers in the Eastern Cape High Court in Bhisho on Monday for the second time in just over a year, asking the court to force Motshekga to publish the norms.
On Tuesday Judge DZ Dukada ruled that the case would be heard urgently next month, as Equal Education had requested.
"In September 2009 … Motshekga stated in Parliament: 'We have developed norms and standards that commit government to providing school buildings of a particular standard.' Those draft regulations were never promulgated into law," Equal Education chairperson Yoliswa Dwane says in her founding affidavit.
The document alleges a "long history of delays, promises to prescribe the regulations and failures to keep those promises". Included in the history are occasions when Motshekga and her director general, Bobby Soobrayan, told Parliament and its portfolio committee on basic education that the norms would be published by a certain date or referred to them in a way that made it seem they had already been published, the affidavit says. For instance:
- "Answering a question in Parliament on February 26 2010, the minister wrote that the national minimum norms and standards for school infrastructure exist and that 'they will be implemented with effect from the 2010 financial year'."
- "On September 3 2010 in Parliament, the minister cited the national policy for an equitable provision of an enabling school physical teaching and learning environment. She then stated: 'This policy will be followed by the norms and standards for school infrastructure.' "
- "On November 26 2010, in answer to a parliamentary question, the minister stated: 'The department of basic education developed the minimum uniform norms and standards for school infrastructure.' "
Equal Education has repeatedly argued that the norms will provide a legally binding framework for school infrastructure and will give communities and Motshekga a document to which they can hold provincial education departments accountable.
The founding affidavit says 3 544 schools do not have electricity, 2 401 schools have no water supply and 913 schools have no ablution facilities.
After two years of campaigning to get the norms published, Equal Education filed court papers in March last year. Days before the case was due to be heard in November, however, Motshekga offered to settle the matter out of court.
She signed an agreement with Equal Education saying she would publish the norms by May 15 this year but a few days before this deadline she asked the organisation for an extension. She then rejected the organisation's offer of a one-month extension, asking instead for six months.
Arguing that Motshekga was in breach of the settlement agreement, Equal Education decided to go back to court. On Wednesday, the minister filed a notice of intention to oppose the application.
Basic education spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi declined to comment but, on Tuesday, the department released a statement calling Equal Education "opportunistic".
"Equal Education is fully aware of [the] processes and the legal timeframes involved, hence [my] request to allow at least six months for the process to take place," the statement quoted Motshekga saying.
"It is therefore disappointing to note the bad faith in which Equal Education is dealing with this matter, by going to court and causing unnecessary media frenzy … This approach is nothing but grandstanding."