Re: supreme court ruling on the admission policy
The congress of South African students is hereby calling for an agent review of the admission policy to a public school, such a call is informed by our long standing observation of the extent to which some regressive management of the former model c schools utilizes the clause 'which empowers the governing body to unilaterally decide on who to administer to a public school' which is used on uncountable instances to opportunistically prohibit black learners from accessing such school because of varying narrow factors with racism being central to most of the cases.
The supreme court victory of the Rivonia primary school on the matter equally pose a serious threat of the exploitation of the clause by untransformed SGBs and schools management, as they will find a justifiable way to close us the children of the working class and poor out of the schools with advanced equipments for learning and teaching.
The ruling exposé the clause to exploitation as it does not suggest how best can it be confirmed beyond what the school is saying when the school claims to be full, therefore the school can always be full depending on who is applying for admission or what might be the colour of their skin or what is their social conditions, hence we believe strongly that such a ruling was narrow and not considerate of the dominant SGB race within model c schools, and the character of most of the SGBs of such schools whose formations are usually crafted carefully by the schools management to enhance a romantic exclusion of the black parents in a way that will not be immediately visible so as to enjoy an endorsement and thumps up from the department as a democratic process.
The case of four and two secondary school in auk Land Park is one of the shining examples of such. Where the SGB elections meeting was called at the time of the memorial service of a black leaner who passed on after being attacked by thugs in the school, wherein majority of the black parents and learners attended to pay their respect, only to come back to the no black collective of the SGB. and later illegal practices such as corporal punishment found expression provided that they are excise to the black students, with reported but unentertained cases in the school.
The judgement is in many ways a setback to the process of deracialising our strategic institutions which are central to the future of a healing and fragile nation like ours. Thus COSAS calls upon all the provincial head of department to utilize their powers inline with clause six of the admission policy which empowers them to delegate responsibility for the admission of the learners to public school to the officials of the department, as an interim solution. While the gigantic student movement activates it machinery to fight recklessly for the amendment of the admission policy.
Statement issued by Secretary General of COSAS. Cde Tshiamo Tsotetsi, December 5 2012
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
