Victory for animation centre
FIGHTING to keep its doors open, the Centre for Fine Art Animation and Design (CFAD) took educational stakeholders to court and won.
The centre’s founder, Nanda Soobben, represented by Pather and Pather Attorneys, brought an urgent notice of motion application in the Durban High Court last Wednesday, interdicting the Council of Higher Education, the Higher Education Quality Committee and the minister and director-general of the Department of Higher Education and Training from taking away their accreditation or closing the school in December.
An interim order was granted that the decisions made by the respondents be suspended. They were given until November 9 to file their answering affidavits.
Soobben said it was a victory after the numerous challenges the school had faced in recent years.
The centre, then based in Morningside, had had equipment stolen, including its administrative computer which had students’ data.
It was deregistered in November 2016 for allegedly failing to submit its 2015 annual report. It was granted a phasing out period until the end of this year.
Another blow came in February 2017 when its programme accreditation was put on notice to withdraw.
The CFAD submitted a new registration application in November 2017. However, in spite of attempts to re-establish CFAD’s accreditation, Soobben said their efforts proved strangely futile in July this year. Therefore, he was forced to seek urgent relief from the court.
“It has been a difficult four years, starting with the robberies and bursary funding due to us that had not arrived, but through it all we stayed strong.”
The centre’s manager and spokesperson, Shabnam Palesa Mohamed, said the school felt vindicated by the court standing up for the rights of students.
“Given that the CFAD has the only SAQA registered integrated multimedia arts curriculum nationally, our alumni, students, and staff are relieved that the outcome of the court hearing upholds the right to education, especially in the field of multimedia arts,” said Mohamed.