The Education Rights Project (ERP), which will formally be launched in June, is being jointly driven by the Education Policy Unit (EPU) and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals), both based at University of the Witwatersrand.
In an article in the February 2002 edition of the Teacher, it was reported that legal action against the DoE was being considered because patience was wearing thin over delays due to “bungled implementation and a bureaucracy marked by inertia”. This was according to Salim Vally, senior researcher in the EPU.
The possible legal action is grounded on the right to basic education as set out in Section 29 of the Constitution. As Vally notes in the December edition of the EPU’s Quarterly Review, “the right to basic education, including adult basic education, is a strong positive right, not qualified by gradual realisation clauses. It is immediate, unconditional, direct and not subject to available resources”.
Problems like a lack of capacity in provinces or a limited budget cannot therefore be claimed as justification for the failure of the DoE to deliver on this basic right.
Faranaaz Veriava from Cals, which is a legal research institute that has been involved in human rights issues for the last 25 years, points out that “people go the route of litigation when the issue can’t be resolved through any other means”.
However, before a strong legal case can be put forward, significant ground still has to be covered. This includes research and close communication with affected education sectors.
The ERP kicked off with its first reference group meeting last month. The group consisted of representatives from human and public rights institutions, as well as education role players like the South African Democratic Teachers Union.
A key challenge for the ERP will be to identify the most vulnerable in the education sector whose right to a basic education continues to be compromised. The framework document identifies the following areas which could form the basis for their campaign:
l the “lack of basic infrastructure/facilities for schools”, which amounts to the DoE “failing to give effect to the full content of the right [to education]”, or as discriminating against particular groups;
– conditions on farm schools, and how they impact negatively on the learners’ right to education;
– the widespread sexual harassment of girl learners, which adds up to a learning environment that hampers the learners’ schooling, sometimes resulting in girl learners dropping out of school altogether.
Another issue that could become a campaign for the ERP is that of free education. The action would challenge the effectiveness of the South African Schools Act and the legislation which allows parents to be exempt from paying fees in achieving what the Constitution promises: free and accessible education for all.
This last issue ties in closely with the action being taken by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), which is stressing the need for the abolition of school fees charged for basic education. Says Solly Mabusela, the South African representative of the GCE, “At the World Education Forum in Dakar, … the international community promised to take immediate action to provide free, quality education to all children.”