55 Northern Cape schools still closed: MEC must take action now
31 July 2014
I will be writing to the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, urging her to utilise the provisions of the law to force action in the Northern Cape to address the ongoing protests that are affecting school attendance in the John Taolo Gaetsewe District.
The DA is deeply concerned by the ongoing protests in the Northern Cape are precluding children enrolled at 55 schools in this district from attending these schools. Eight of these schools are high schools; the rest are primary schools.
The communities are complaining about the state of a road. Parents and community members are depriving their children of an education, as they did in 2012, in a misguided attempt to convey a strong message to their government.
It is tragic that a road can be considered of greater importance than the education of a community's children. However, of equal concern is the reaction of the Northern Cape MEC for Education, Grizelda Cjiekella-Lecholo.
The MEC is quoted as saying that there is nothing her department can do to mitigate the situation since the reasons for children not attending school are not "education-related".
The MEC requires a lesson in education law.
Section 3(1) of the South African Schools Act (SASA) 84 of 1996 reads as follows :
"Subject to this Act and any applicable provincial law, every parent must cause every learner for whom he or she is responsible to attend a school from the first school day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of seven years until the last school day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of fifteen years or the ninth grade, whichever occurs first."
So, the law requires the children of the Northern Cape to be in school. The SASA goes further, in section 3(5) :
"If a learner who is subject to compulsory attendance...fails to attend a school, the Head of
Department may-
(a) investigate the circumstances of the learner's absence from school;
(b) take appropriate measures to remedy the situation; and
(c) failing such a remedy, issue a written notice to the parent of the learner requiring compliance..."
The law thus gives the Northern Cape Education Department express powers to intervene if children are not attending school.
Section 3(6) of SASA also makes the parents and community members preventing children from attending school potentially guilty of a criminal offence.
The right to education is a constitutional imperative, without any level, ever, of limitation. It lies at the very heart of creating opportunities for our future generations. It is the tool that will allow the children of these poverty-stricken Northern Cape communities to be able to break the cycle of poverty.
The MEC has legislation empowering her to take action. Unless she does, she is complicit is denying the young people of Kuruman and surrounds a basic human right.
She must act without delay.
Minister Motshekga has the right, also in terms of education law, to demand a plan of action from the MEC.
Whatever it takes to get these children back to school must now be done.
Statement issued by Annette Lovemore MP, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, July 31 2014
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