Single parents get school fees relief

EXEMPTION APPLICATIONS: NO NEED FOR EX’S INCOME DETAILS

The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled when applying for school fees exemption, singles don’t need their ex-spouses to qualify.

Schools can take legal steps to get other parent to pay up.

Single parents all over South Africa received some good news after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) made a decision that will help them when applying for exemption from school fees, Randburg Sun reports.

They will no longer need their ex-spouses’ income details to qualify for a school fee exemption after the court ruling.

In 2016, the Western Cape High Court recognised the immense burden faced by single parents when they have to apply for school fees exemption. However, the court maintained that both parents were liable for payment of school fees, according to the South African Schools Act, and therefore both needed to produce income statements when applying for exemption.

But the SCA overturned the ruling last week on single mother Michelle Saffer’s case. Saffer is a divorced mother who applied for school fee exemption for her daughter, who was at Fish Hoek High School in Cape Town in 2010. She was unable to pay the fees.

The school required her and her estranged ex-husband to fill in a form as both of them constituted a “family unit”, even though she had custody of their daughter. She found this process discriminatory, humiliating and unreasonable. Despite appeals to the Western Cape education department, Saffer’s fee exemption application was ultimately rejected.

The Equal Education Law Centre said that in vindication of Saffer’s rights, the Supreme Court of Appeal has set aside the refusal to grant her fee exemption and declared that in processing and dealing with Saffer’s exemption application, the school and the school governing body subjected her to repeated violations of her constitutional and statutory rights.

Furthermore, the court made it clear that in circumstances where one parent has refused or failed to provide their income details, public schools shall grant a conditional fee exemption to the custodial parent, having regard only to her or his income. This conditional fee exemption shall be the total or partial fee exemption to which the applicant would have been entitled to if he or she were the only parent of the pupil concerned.

The granting of conditional exemption will not limit the public school from taking legal steps to enforce payment by the other parent for the balance of the school fees. – Caxton News Service