ermelo language battle in court
16 July 2007

The tax payer should not have to spend R30 million building new schools when classrooms were standing empty and children were going to bed hungry, a Pretoria High Court Judge said on Friday.

Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe said this during argument by counsel for Hoerskool Ermelo in an application for leave to appeal against a ruling by a full bench of the high court that it become a dual medium school. The school first went to court in February in an attempt to retain its Afrikaans-only character. Judge Bill Prinsloo granted an interim interdict, suspending a decision by an Mpumalanga education department committee that the school admit pupils wanting to be taught in English, and become dual medium.

A full bench of the high court later allowed Education Minister Naledi Pandor and the mother of one of the English pupils to intervene, set aside the interim order and compelled the school to enrol more than 100 English pupils. Only 19 eventually enrolled and were still in the school, but the school is trying to prevent the enrolment of 150 more next year.

The school’s lawyer, Colin van Onselen, argued that the language medium of a school could not be decided by the minister, but by the head of the province’s education department. Children had a right to education in the language of their choice, but could not enforce that right against a particular school, even if that school had empty classrooms.

To this argument, Ngoepe said that pupils would “end up on the streets” if they were not allowed into school, and that the tax payer would then have to spend money to accommodate them. “Why should I spend R30 million to build new schools if classrooms are standing empty?... I can’t spend R30 million in a country where children are going to bed hungry...” he said.

Van Onselen argued the school was in an “untenable” situation and needed to stop a “flood” of pupils who might be removed from the school.
Counsel for the minister, Regent Tokota, SC, said the minister did not have the right to determine a language policy, but had a responsibility to provide quality education and to protect a child’s right to education.

Judgment was reserved.

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