The Gauteng Department of Education has welcomed the Rivonia court judgment where the department sought the court’s intervention after a suburban school refused to admit a Grade 1 pupil early this year.
This comes after the Rivonia Primary School had taken the department to court after it was ordered to admit the learner at the school in February 2011. The department felt it needed to defend this case on the grounds that the school “sought to perpetuate racially divisive policies.”
“We understood that we had a constitutional duty to find space for children who presented themselves at our institutions or the department,” said the department’s spokesperson Charles Phahlane.
Another reason for the department’s move on this particular case was that the province was experiencing rapid in-migration of people into the ‘place of gold’, with the learner population growing by over 37% since 1995.
Phahlane said; “this places huge strain on the available resources and the rate of building new schools cannot cope with the rate of in-migration.”
He said that the judgment affirmed that MEC Barbara Creecy was duty-bound to utilise the full range of her powers to ensure that the constitutional obligation for every child to attend school is met.
“We will continue to work with all principals and School Governing Bodies (SGB) to ensure our learners are put first and we achieve our objective of quality education in the classroom every day”, he said.
He added that the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) appreciated the many hundreds of principals and School Governing Bodies (SGB) that go the extra mile to help the department meet the joint constitutional responsibility to provide schooling for learners.
Gauteng welcomes Rivonia court judgment
Province
