Equal Education (EE) and the Equal Education Law Centre say it will be heading to urgent court to ensure the immediate placement of all unplaced learners in the Western Cape. This after the organisations have been flooded with queries from parents seeking support for the placement of their children. According to EE, the majority of these cases are in the Metro East Education District.
On 11 April 2024, EE together with five parents, launched an urgent court application against the Western Cape Government and the Department of Basic Education for the immediate placement of unplaced learners in schools in the province.
“Learner placement in the Western Cape remains a long-standing systemic issue that the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) continuously fail to adequately plan for. The 2024 academic year has continued along this trend – “
The organisation says it has attempted to engage the department by writing letters, attending meetings, protesting, handing over memorandums and highlighting key recommendations through traditional and social media. However, all of these attempts have fallen on deaf ears after it allegedly resulted in no significant change or an agreement by the department to plan better.
“parents and caregivers, have no other choice but to approach the courts to secure the placement of the many learners who, more than two weeks into the second school term, are still at home without access to education.”
Court application for learner placement
The court application brought by Equal Education and the Equal Education Law Centre is divided into two parts.
Part A of the application seeks an order for the placement of all out-of-school late applicant learners in the Western Cape. This includes remedial and support plans for these learners to ensure they meet the academic requirements for 2024. It also requests the Head of Department to produce an investigative report on why the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has failed to place these learners.
Part B of the application focuses on the WCED’s policy failure to address late applications and, according to EE, the extent to which it unfairly discriminates against late applicants based on race, poverty level, place of birth, and social origin.
“We are also asking the court to declare the WCED’s failure to timeously place late applicant learners in schools unconstitutional, and as a result, the WCED’s Admission policy -should be set aside because they permit late applicants to remain unplaced for an indefinite period…”
The Western Cape Education Department has however says by the time schools closed last year, it had already placed 99.4% of leasrner applicants for 2024. Nearly 4,000 extremely late applications were then received after the 1st of January this year, all of whom have allegedly been placed.
“As new applicants for the current school year relocate during the year, we will continue to assist them. We are now well into next year’s admission cycle, receiving a record-breaking 102,680 placement applications for the 2025 school year.” – WCED
The department says applications for the 2025 school year are currently being considered by schools. Parents will start to receive the outcomes of their applications from the 30th of May, 2024.
