Equal Education (EE), the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) and 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 Western Cape’s Metro East Education District.
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In a statement, EE says 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 organisation says it was inundated with queries this year from parents seeking support for the placement of their children in the province, particularly in the Metro East Education District.
‘EE and the EELC have 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 failed to result in significant change or an agreement by the department to plan better.’
‘Therefore, parents and caregivers along with EE and the EELC, 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.’
On 17 April, the WCED released the ‘record number’ of Grade 1 and 8 admissions applications for 2025, stating that parents and caregivers who apply after a month-long online application period in the preceding year of placement are classified as ‘late applicants’.
These ‘late applicants’ comprise the bulk of learners who remain unplaced after the school year starts.
The EE further states that there is no policy in place to address this issue, resulting in learners not attending school.
‘Parents and caregivers have expressed that they are not negligent but that there are various unforeseeable socio-economic and circumstantial reasons for children being out of school, such as the death of a caregiver and being moved from a primary residence because of abuse.’
The EE says parents are also concerned about the inaccessibility of the online system, as the majority of learners who are not placed are ‘black children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds’.
‘Non-access to education for these learners worsens the inequality in the Western Cape. Applying late does not mean that learners should lose their right to access education.’
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The court application brought by EE and the EELC is divided into two parts – part A is urgent and part B is semi-urgent.
Part A seeks an order for the placement of all out-of-school late applicant learners in the Western Cape, as well as support plans for them to ensure that they meet the academic standards for 2024.
EE also calls on the head of the department to produce an investigative report on why the learners have not been placed.
Part B of the application focuses on the department’s policy failure to address late applications as well as ‘the extent to which it unfairly discriminates against late applicants based on race, poverty level, place of birth, and social origin’.
The organisation also calls on the court to declare the WCED’s failure to timeously place late applicants unconstitutional.
‘The WCED’s Admission policy’s failure to address late applications is a long-standing issue that directly affects learners.’
‘The WCED’s continuous failure to plan proactively for the timely placement of learners in schools threatens their immediately realisable right to access education.’
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Also read:
WCED receives unprecedented number of Grade 1 and 8 applications
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