Western Cape schools admission policy challenged in court

Equal Education argues that the Western Cape Education Department’s admissions policy does not cater for the needs of learners who make late applications for placement when the school year has already started. Archive photo: Masixole Feni

• Equal Education wants the Western Cape High Court to declare the Western Cape Education Department’s school admissions policy unconstitutional.
• The organisation says the system does not make provision for parents or caregivers who apply late for school placement due to circumstances out of their control.
• The Western Cape Department of Education says it is the responsibility of parents to apply for schooling on time and maintains that late applicants are provided for in the admissions policy.

The Western Cape High Court is hearing an application by Equal Education on Thursday to have the Western Cape Education Department’s school admission policy declared unconstitutional. Equal Education argues the policy does not cater for children with late applications.

The case focuses specifically on the placement of learners in the Metro East Education District (MEED). The six applicants in the case include Equal Education and five parents or caregivers of children who made late applications in the 2024 school year.

The children relocated from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape due to unforeseen circumstances. In one instance, a learner’s mother passed away. In another, her mother relocated to Johannesburg to work as a domestic worker. Another’s mother was retrenched due to the COVID pandemic.

These circumstances led to the parents and caregivers only applying for school placement after the school year had already begun.

Thursday’s hearing is part B of the case. In July 2024 Judge Lister Nuku ruled in favour of Equal Education in part A of the case, ordering the WCED to place in school all learners who had applied late.

The court order led the department to implement new procedures for processing late applications and establish “pop-up” admission stations in several areas of Cape Town.

Equal Education has decided to continue with Part B because of “systemic” issues that still remain. It wants the court to declare that

• the department’s failure to plan for late applications violates the Constitution,
• the department’s admission policy violates the Constitution by failing to accommodate late applications, and
• the admission policy violates the Constitution for unfairly discriminating on the “basis of race, poverty level, place of birth and social origin”.

Equal Education says the current admissions policy does not specify

• the steps which late applicants must follow,
• who is responsible for assisting late applicants,
• how long it will take for long applicants to be placed, and
• the process to be followed if late applicants don’t have the required documentation.

Equal Education’s court papers argue that the department’s conduct, admissions policy and related circulars are unconstitutional because they violate the right to a basic education. This is because education is the primary vehicle by which socially and economically marginalised persons can lift themselves out of poverty.

Equal Education says late applications largely stem from migration from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape, which are linked in the main to socioeconomic challenges facing learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The majority of those affected by the current policy are Black learners, and by delaying their placement in schools, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage they seek to escape from is compounded, Equal Education contends.

They dispute the department’s claim that the arrival of late applications is ‘unprecedented’ because the department has been aware of this predicament since 2014.

Education department’s response

In court papers, the department argues that it is parents who are failing to comply with their legal duty to adhere to the compulsory education period (from age seven to age fifteen) by not to applying on time for their children to be placed in schools.

The department argues that it goes out of its way through advocacy and communications efforts to raise awareness among parents about when and how they should apply for school placements in the preceding year.

Applications for placement open in the preceding year between March and April. Applications should generally be made via the department’s online system, but it also makes provision for walk-in applicants who should obtain assistance from the nearest district office.

The department also argues that its admissions policy does cater to the needs of late applications and that parents and guardians of such children should make enquiries at the district office nearest to their place of residence.

To the extent that any learners have not been placed, the department contends that it is investigating this and, in any event, according to the information received, almost all the learners have now been placed.

Lastly, while not conceding that the current policy is defective, the department points out that it has recently adopted procedures which enhance its admission policy for late applicants. It says that Equal Education was invited to make input on this.

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