Stop treating SA’s poorest children like an annoyance

IT was never a fair fight. From the very beginning, the odds were stacked against thousands of Limpopo children in this immense battle against a well-funded education department that has been nonchalant in its delivery of textbooks.

But this week, South Africa’s courts were there to adjudicate this David and Goliath battle. And for the second time, little David triumphed. The Supreme Court of Appeal instructed the government to ensure that textbooks are delivered on time, to every pupil. The court further stated that the Department of Basic Education had violated the rights and dignity of the children and discriminated against them.

How shameful that this matter had to reach the appeal court! There was a lot of finger-pointing but no accountability three years ago when it was revealed that children in Limpopo, and other provinces, had to end the school year without ever touching a textbook.

At that time, Minister Angie Motshekga’s spokesman said it was not her responsibility to deliver textbooks. This was further affirmed by her boss, President Jacob Zuma, who said provincial officials must take responsibility.

Yet it is the national department headed by the same minister that appealed a high court ruling that textbooks be provided to children. Clearly this was not just a provincial matter.

Think about it. A rights and advocacy NGO, Section 27, had to go to the high court to compel the department to deliver textbooks to 39 schools in Limpopo. Most of these schools are under-resourced and cater for mainly poor pupils.

We have been here before, when a certain racist Verwoerd and all his predecessors made it their business to bequeath an inferior education to black children. Many years after Verwoerd’s ghost has been exorcised, the current government is determined to trap poor children in that vortex of poverty and underdevelopment.

Instead of hanging its head in shame and redeeming its image by providing textbooks as per the high court’s instruction, the government imprudently challenged the ruling. Instead of admitting its mistakes and correcting them, the department added insult to injury by asserting that providing textbooks on time, to every pupil, was unreasonable, unachievable and represented a standard of perfection that was elusive.

Whereas four years ago provincial officials were blamed, we now know the real reason textbooks were not prioritised: it is because the department thinks they are not a basic requirement but a standard of “perfection”.

Legal commentators everywhere opined that there was no way the department’s argument would trump its constitutional duty to provide textbooks. The argument that there are alternative methods through which learning material can be obtained was also flimsy.

Appeal court Judge Mahomed Navsa tore into this argument, asking: “Why should poverty-stricken schools and learners have to be put to the expense of having to photocopy from the books of other schools?”

How shameful that the textbook matter had to reach the appeal court!

He then rightly dismissed the appeal with costs.

I can guess what will happen next. The department will put its PR machine into full drive and go on the defensive. It will deny that it violated the rights of children and will expend energy putting together 10-point plans that demonstrate its successes.

There may also be a harsh word or labelling of the NGO involved, which, as we know, is an offshoot of the Treatment Action Campaign and the Aids Law Project — organisations that fought and won the fight for affordable antiretroviral treatment.

The department may also tell the nation that it had always planned to deliver textbooks to all school children as per some grand policy from its copious reports and documents.

But we are not interested in that. Just deliver the textbooks already and stop treating poor children like an inconvenience. Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.sundaytimes.co.za