Family fails to get children into school
Court rules in favour of education department in placement dispute
In a desperate bid to get the courts to force Northcliff High in Johannesburg to admit two of his children, an indigent father asked his son, who is an advocate, to represent him without realising it was “improper” because they are related.
South Gauteng High Court acting judge Stephan van Nieuwenhuizen, who presides over urgent applications, “overlooked the breaches in protocols” and allowed Kgaogelo Letswalo to act on behalf of his unemployed father, Monanye Letswalo.
But Letswalo’s bid to compel the Gauteng education department to admit his two children suffered a huge setback on Thursday when Van Nieuwenhuizen dismissed an interim court order that had been issued by his colleague, acting judge Johan Moorcroft, on April 19.
The interim order called on the department to show cause by May 10 why an order should not be made to admit the two children while it “finalised an investigation” into why Letswalo’s residential address was incorrectly published during the application process for admission last year.
He and his wife, Beauty, lodged an urgent application in April on behalf of their two children, Mojalefa, 14, and his sister, Modjadji, 13, who have not been to school since January.
The parents have been desperately trying to enrol them in grade 8 since the online admissions system opened on August 10 last year.
Their chosen schools were Northcliff High and Rand Park High, but they were offered places at Ferndale High, some 8km from their home.
In court documents Letswalo said the information on the system “wrongfully indicated he was a resident of Cosmo City in Roodepoort”, but they have been living in Windsor West, north of Northcliff.
“A place was offered [at Ferndale High] but it would have made it near impossible that the two minor children would be able to walk to and from school compared to the school they applied to.”
The papers said Letswalo had applied in time to have his children admitted to a school within reasonable distance, namely, Northcliff High.
“Capturing an incorrect address had the effect of kicking out the minor children from the preferential list.”
Letswalo contended that the department could have offered as another solution an alternative school “with the precondition they will assist in transporting the children”.
The acting district director for Johannesburg North, Vuyelwa Cindi, said in an affidavit that the department’s automated system “automatically ranks the learners, prioritising applications according to home address within the school feeder zone closest to the school”.
“Northcliff High is a high-pressure school and they received 894 applications for grade 8 for this year and only 294 were placed. The application was declined on the basis that the parent failed to provide a valid proof of address.”
A total of 7,321 addresses of applicants applying for places last year for admission this year could not be verified.
Cindi said the two children were placed at number 523 and 524 on the waiting list at Northcliff High.
“There were 233 other learners ranked higher than the applicant’s two minor children on the placement list and they too did not get a placement. Should this court order the applicant’s minor children to be placed at Northcliff High, this would open the floodgates to all those parents of the 233 learners who did not get placed at the school to litigate and come to court.”
Van Nieuwenhuizen also got the department to provide an affidavit from its chief information officer, Sanelisiwe Kheswa, which outlined in detail how the automated online system works.
He complimented the department’s legal representative for “going a very long way to demonstrate that there’s some rationality behind the system”, adding: “They use some of the most sophisticated [programmes] that are available to SA. All that is missing is artificial intelligence.”
He told Letswalo’s counsel he could not detect “an element of irrationality” in the admissions system.
“I know it’s not the best outcome, it’s not first prize, but one doesn’t always get first prize in life.”
He told Letswalo’s counsel that he should have never accepted the brief to represent his family and should have asked a colleague to assist.
“I’m certainly not going to lay a complaint. Inasmuch as you created your own problem, you also were in many ways still of assistance to this court.”
Monanye said the family is “very disappointed” with the ruling .
“My little girl cried uncontrollably when we informed her about the ruling. We are considering options like home schooling because definitely we won’t allow our children to walk 8km to Ferndale.”