The all-white Potgietersrus Primary School is invoking the constitution in its efforts to remain exclusive, writes Justin Pearce
OUR tradition-rich school is our pride reads the slogan in the prospectus for Potgietersrus Primary, a booklet illustrated with photographs of verdant school grounds and industrious white children.
Just what this pride entails will be examined before the Transvaal Supreme Court on Friday when the court hears an application by the Northern Province government and certain parents for an order to prevent the school from barring children on the grounds of race.
Both parties believe they have the constitution on their side. In the founding affadavits before the court, the province draws on the constitutional ban on racial discrimination, while the school denies the charges of racism and hits back by invoking constitutional protection of language and cultural rights. The case will be the first time that a court of law will examine the implications of the language and culture clauses and weigh them up against other constitutional provisions.
The outcome of the case will decide the educational future of the three children of Alson Matukane, a director in the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, who were barred from entering the school last month, as well as at least 18 other applicants who applied only to be told the school was full.
Matukane states that he was allowed to register his children when he went to the school in the company of a circuit inspector, only to be turned away when he arrived with his children on the first day of the school year.
But an affadavit submitted by Koos Nel, chairman of the school’s management committee, denies in the strongest possible terms that the pupils had been excluded on racial grounds.
The school’s admission requirements state that the pupil and his/her parent/guardian must declare that they respect the Christian-Afrikaner-Boer culture and traditions, adding that similar requirements apply with respect to the Engelsman and English language and culture.
It will be argued in the hearing of this application that language, culture and religion are protected by the constitution, Nel states.
Since 1955 Potgietersrus Primary has been a parallel- medium school with English and Afrikaans streams, Afrikaans pupils outnumbering English-speakers by roughly 10 to one. Yet this year, which happens to be the first year in which black pupils sought admission to the school’s English-medium classes, the school management committee proposed that the school be divided into English and Afrikaans schools on separate premises. The province rejected this proposal on the grounds that it amounted to racial discrimination, which appears to have prompted white parents to bar the Matukane children from entering the premises.
Beneath the arguments around the protection of language and culture, there are signs that in Potgietersrus, English-speaking is the latest euphemism for black. An affadavit by Education MEC Aaron Motsoaledi notes that Potgietersrus buses white children in from Zebedelia, 40km away, apparently because the school at Zebedelia is now predominantly black. Nel responds that Zebedelia Primary was flooded with English-speaking children to the extent that the school’s whole character had disappeared.
Motsoaledi refers to the minutes of a meeting where headmaster Adam Roussouw is quoted as saying that no other races except whites are admitted because (Potgietersrus) is a traditionally conservative, Christian, Afrikaans medium school. Nel claims that Roussouw was misquoted in the minutes which Motsoaledi refers to.
In addition to the arguments around culture, the school argues that it is over-full. The province maintains, however, that the pupil:teacher ratio stands at 27:1 below the 33:1 accepted by the province and that in the English section of the school it is as low as 22:1.
The government has the power to close the school or replace its governing body, but after negotiations failed it opted for the less drastic measure of a court settlement. If the court rules in favour of the provincial government, it will be up to the police to enforce the ruling, and ensure that pupils are allowed to attend school without interference from parents who do not want them there. If the school authorities still do not comply in the event of the court ruling against them, the government can still intervene.
Pending the court ruling, the Matukane children have been accommodated at the over-full Acacia Primary School, an English-medium school previously reserved for Indian pupils.