ANC, activists take WCED to Concourt
THE provincial ANC has teamed up with a group called Parents for Equal Education SA (Peesa) and are planning to go to court to compel the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) to address the number of unplaced learners in the province.
The group of parents alleges the department fed them lies, making the public believe it had successfully placed their children in schools.
The ANC’s provincial spokesperson on education, Khalid Sayed, said the province was faced with unplaced learners year after year, and the situation lasted well into the middle of the academic year.
Sayed said some learners did not even make it to a classroom for an entire academic year, and others were placed very late into the year and missed out on most of the academic work.
“The usual excuse is that learners migrate from other provinces. Budget constraints are also offered as excuses,” he said.
Peesa founder Vanessa le Roux said they, as activists, knew that was far from the truth. There was no political will to provide quality education to poor and vulnerable communities.
“As activists, visiting these communities daily, we knew that everything they spin in the public domain is blatant lies. We see these communities and children each and every day,” said Le Roux.
She said they knew that the real total number of unplaced learners far exceeded what Education MEC Debbie Schäfer said in her public statements
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The usual excuse is that learners migrate from other provinces. Budget constraints are also offered as excuses KHALID SAYED
ANC education spokesperson
and to Parliament recently.
Le Roux claimed not once did the MEC rush to hear the community’s plea in the same manner she rushed to Brackenfell when racist incidents occurred.
ANC and Peesa have filed an application in the Constitutional Court, stating that Schäfer failed to comply with her statutory and constitutional duties to ensure the availability of sufficient places at schools for every child in the province.
Schäfer said they would study the papers before commenting, but there was no doubt it was a classic case of political opportunism.
“Unfortunately, it is playing politics with the important issue of education, which will mean that more of our already scarce resources will have to be spent on legal fees, instead of improving education, which is what we are trying to do,” said Schäfer.
She said there was no explanation of the justification to approach the Constitutional Court directly.