Court looking in wrong place for cause of problems, says FEDSAS about Rivonia decision

A line through parents' indefeasible right to make decisions about their children's education.

This is how the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (FEDSAS) describes the decision yesterday by the South Gauteng High Court regarding Rivonia Primary School. The school's governing body took the Gauteng Education Department to court after this department forced the school earlier this year to admit a learner despite the fact that the school has already reached maximum capacity at that stage. However, the court ruled yesterday that the final decision regarding admission remains with the department.

"This means that bureaucrats and politicians again take decisions regarding the admission of learners. Of course, this approach was also a characteristic of a previous dispensation when many people where marginalised," says Mr Paul Colditz, CEO of FEDSAS.

Colditz says the current education system is based on a principle accepted in 1995 in White Paper 1 regarding a new education dispensation. Among others, it states that parents or guardians carry the primary responsibility for the education of their children, and that they have the right to be consulted by state authorities regarding the form of this education and that they have the right to take part in the management of this education.

"Included in this principle is the right of parents to choose the language and cultural or religious basis of the child's education, keeping in mind the rights of others and the growing child's right to choose," says Colditz.

"All parents want their children to attend good schools. Unfortunately South Africa has some of the worst education outcomes in the world. Some 80% of schools are dysfunctional. This places enormous pressure on the 20% of schools where quality education is taking place. In this instance, the court simply looked for the cause of the problems in the wrong place by ruling that education officials should now have the final say in the admission of learners to these functional schools," says Colditz.

"They should be putting all their energy towards making the education system better and addressing the problems at dysfunctional schools instead of meddling with the functions of governing bodies of good schools. Those schools are good because parents, the governing body and staff work very hard to uphold discipline and to ensure that the focus remains on education. In many cases parents are paying a lot of money to ensure the quality of their children's education because the State cannot provide it. If their say in their children's education is taken away in this manner, more and more parents will leave the public school system and take their children to private schools. This will lead to the complete collapse of the public school system."

FEDSAS will be advising the Rivonia Governing Body to lodge an appeal. The organisation is also considering entering such an appeal as a friend of the court. "It is time that the court gains a complete perspective of what is happening in the country's education system."

 (FEDSAS is a voluntary association of school governing bodies of public schools and supports quality education in these schools. Some 1260 public schools are already members of FEDSAS).

Statement issued by Mr Paul Colditz, CEO: FEDSAS, December 8 2011

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