Afrikaans schools lose case

2005-10-24 16:50

Kimberley - The Northern Cape High Court ruled in favour of the Northern Cape education department on Monday that three Afrikaans medium schools become dual medium.

The court dismissed an application by the schools' governing bodies to set aside a decision by the department in August 2004 that all schools in the Kuruman area would become dual medium schools.

The Kalahari High School and Seodin Primary School in Kuruman and the Noord-Kaapland Agricultural High School in Jan Kempdorp took the department to court to challenge the decision to introduce dual medium instruction.

The governing bodies argued that it was their constitutional right to teach in the language of their choice.

They also argued that not enough resources - teachers, money and classrooms - to execute dual medium education successfully.

However, the court found that the three schools did not have an approved language policy.

Delivering judgment, Northern Cape Judge President Frans Kgomo said it would be a sad day if some children remained illiterate just to preserve the status of some schools.

"It would be a sad day in the South African historical annals that hundreds of children remained illiterate or dropped out of school because they were excluded from under-utilised schools purportedly to protect and preserve the status of certain schools as single-medium Afrikaans schools," the judgment reads.

Kgomo also found that the suggestion that the Northern Cape education department targeted only Afrikaans schools was wrong.

"(It)... is over-simplistic but certainly not the case in the current matter," he said.

"Dual-medium, whether it be Setswana and Afrikaans or English and Afrikaans or whichever combination of languages, cannot be construed, and more importantly, cannot have the effect of denying learners the use of the language of their choice."

The judge indicated that the affected pupils should remain at the three schools.

"In the view that I take of this matter, and this must be made absolutely plain, the affected children have now acquired a vested right to be at the various schools whereat they are learners and cannot be removed there from without an order of this court," he said.

The education department was not immediately available for comment.

- SAPA