A prestigious Eastern Cape high school is embroiled in a legal battle after refusing to accept a teenager because of her alleged ”bad” behaviour, the Dispatch reported on Wednesday.
The classroom drama pits the 14-year-old girl, her parents and the Education Department against Queenstown Girls’ High School.
The school asked Bhisho High Court to stop the department forcing them to accept the girl. Last year, the school rejected an application by the girl, whose name is being withheld for ethical reasons, for acceptance into grade eight from primary school because she ”had a dubious class record” and was ”not of worthy character”.
In court papers, school principal Richard Edkins said his decision stemmed from his independent knowledge of her ”poor disciplinary record”.
He said he was told about the girl’s past behaviour by the headmaster of one of Queenstown’s primary feeder schools, Balmoral Primary.
His decision, Edkins said, had the full support of the school’s governing body.
Meetings between the girl’s parents, the school and the department eventually ended in the department ordering that the girl be allowed into the school.
It was then that the school decided to take the case to court, asking the judge to set aside the department’s order or have it judicially reviewed.
However, acting Judge Mazembe Ndzondo dismissed the school’s application with costs.
The judge said Edkins had acted ”precipitately and improperly” in refusing to admit the girl.
Ndzondo said the only ”irresistible inference” that could be drawn from affidavits presented by Edkins and Balmoral Primary principle Sarie Els was that the girl’s conduct played no part whatsoever in the decision not to admit her.
”There is no evidence in the papers that [the girl] was ever confronted or punished for this so-called behaviour nor did the principal of Balmoral ever draw this to the attention of [the girl’s] parents.”
The girl’s parents welcomed the ruling on Tuesday, but said the damage had already been done, so much so that they were now seeking psychological help for their ”traumatised” daughter.
The mother, a teacher at a rural school near Queenstown, said her daughter was now enrolled at a high school in Cathcart.
Education department chief director Sithembele Zibi said: ”This child has no record of any disciplinary action against her as a result of misconduct.”
”We requested proof that she was badly behaved and we have received no record of that. We therefore cannot accept that her conduct was bad.” – Sapa