Opposition parties have accused the government of exploiting the schooling and legal systems and of wanting to take control of every single school in South Africa.
”The minister of education [Naledi Pandor] is exploiting the schooling system and the legal system to lead an ideological crusade against Afrikaans,” Democratic Alliance spokesperson Desiree van der Walt said on Wednesday.
A full bench of the Pretoria High Court ruled on Tuesday that Afrikaans-medium Hoërskool Ermelo must admit English-speaking pupils.
Tuesday’s court victory for the minister threatened to throw the education system into chaos, and might make life even more difficult for some struggling schools, she said.
Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe and judges Willie Seriti and Natvarial Ranchod, in a five-minute ruling, set aside an earlier order by Judge Bill Prinsloo that suspended a decision that the school had to admit English-speaking pupils.
Pandor was also granted leave to intervene in a review application by the school against the head of the Mpumalanga education department’s decision to replace the school’s governing body with a departmentally appointed committee.
That committee thereafter decided that the school should become a parallel-medium school.
Van der Walt said the judgement appeared to set a precedent whereby a minority group of pupils could demand that a school with an established language policy change its course to meet their needs, despite the existence of other schools in the area that could serve them.
”Presumably, this judgement will apply to all official languages, and the implications will be felt across the country if other learners make similar demands for parallel instruction in their language of choice,” she said. Parallel-medium instruction was a massive additional expense and administrative burden, which many schools less well-endowed than Ermelo would not be able to bear.
A further problem was likely to be the lack of sufficient teachers available in the languages required.
Van der Walt also had concerns about the precedent set for governing bodies.
The powers of governing bodies had been under sustained attack from the ministry for a considerable period, with various measures, including the Education Laws Amendment Act passed in 2005, being used to undermine their decision-making authority.
”It is unfortunate that their powers are now likely to be further weakened,” she said.
Andrew Gerber of the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) accused Pandor of ”autocratic actions”, which had alienated many moderate Afrikaners.
”The goodwill with which they had helped to manage the very complex education situation in South Africa has changed into disillusionment.
”It is now quite clear that the government wants to take control of every single school in South Africa,” he said.
The FF+ also wanted clarity on media reports that Ngoepe had interfered in the case following Prinsloo’s interim order.
According to reports, Ngoepe had ”posed questions to the legal representatives of the school governing body”.
It was also reported that the state attorney requested that the interim order be reconsidered.
If these reports proved to be correct, it could rightfully be asked if there had been any political interference in this case, Gerber said. — Sapa