Court closes unregistered independent school

THE Grahamstown High Court yesterday effectively shut down Port Elizabeth independent school EduPlanet because it remains unregistered.

Some 300 EduPlanet School pupils must now urgently find alternative schools to take them on.

The provincial education department brought the urgent high court interdict to stop EduPlanet from operating the unregistered independent school in Port Elizabeth as a vital first step in its battle against unregistered schools.

It says the future of children attending these unregistered and unmonitored schools where standards may not be up to scratch puts their educational futures at risk.

EduPlanet claimed it was entitled to operate and was doing so lawfully, even though it was unregistered.

In the interest of what it described as the children’s constitutional right to an education, it asked the high court to suspend the operation of any interdict against it for 12 months to give it an opportunity to complete the registration process.

But Judge Clive Plasket refused to do so, questioning whether he could suspend an interdict in circumstances in which the conduct complained of amounted to an ongoing criminal offence.

He said the SA Schools Act was clear that an independent school must be registered with the provincial education department.

The act made it a criminal offence for a school to operate without being registered.

EduPlanet had operated since July last year in an unregulated way.

Plasket said it believed it could operate with impunity despite not having filed an application for registration and despite the property it operated from not being zoned for education purposes.

EduPlanet director Charl Meyer had only finally applied for registration in mid-January.

Education MEC Mandla Makupula had indicated in court papers that even this application was defective.

Plasket said the pupils had, in effect, been enticed to register and their parents had been required to pay substantial amounts of money under false pretences.

“They would have been entitled to assume that EduPlanet had complied with the law and was registered.” He said Meyer’s approach to the requirement of registration disclosed a “disturbing degree of contempt for the constitution and the law and for the rights of students and their parents”.

He said the provincial education department had acted properly and with urgency to protect the public interest and to safeguard the rule of law.

“It would undermine them and the rule of law to allow a blatant illegality to continue.

“To decline to come to their aid, even on a temporary basis, would amount to this court abrogating its duty to enforce the law.”

Plasket said Meyer was unrepentant and unapologetic in court papers about contravening the law.

He ordered EduPlanet to pay the costs of the department’s application on a punitive scale to show the court’s displeasure with this conduct.

Advocate Kerryn Watt instructed by NN Dullabh & Co, argued the case for the department while advocate Ivana Bands instructed by Netteltons argued on behalf of EduPlanet.