Right-wing party urges parents to seek private and home schooling after ConCourt ruling



A right wing political party on Monday encouraged parents to “find alternatives to government schooling” after a court ruling‚ it says‚ “takes away a significant proportion of school governing bodies’ powers”. “Such alternatives include the establishment of private schools and home schooling‚” Front National South Africa spokesperson Daniël Lötter said of the Constitutional Court ruling on Friday in favour of the Gauteng Department of Education regarding school admissions regulations.“The ruling means that single medium schools will be forced to accept learners who cannot speak the language‚ consequently forcing these schools to become parallel-medium which‚ in turn‚ as proven by history‚ inevitably leads to the school adopting English as only means of tuition‚” Lötter said.“This is a preposterous infringement of the very constitutional right of the learner to be educated in his/her mother tongue and will lead to the rights of minority groups once again being trampled underfoot by politicians hiding their agenda behind the constitution.“If a court ruling means that the linguistic and cultural uniqueness of minority groups are under attack‚ we will find alternatives by education our children by ourselves.”Lötter lamented that powers the school governing bodies had lost because of the court ruling had been transferred it to Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi.In a Facebook comment following Friday’s ruling‚ Lesufi said: “We WON! Thanks ConCourt‚ today we finally broke the backbone of apartheid planning‚” he said.Lesufi said Gauteng schools now belong to all children‚ not just the privileged few.“The judgment empowers us‚ as government‚ to declare new feeder zones thus‚ burying the transitional 5km radius! No parent will be asked a salary slip before their children are admitted in our schools! The best gift as we observe the 40th anniversary of the 16th June Uprisings! Also a fitting tribute by Justice Moseneke in his last judgement as member of the ConCourt.”The Federation of Governing Bodies of South Africa had appealed a court ruling in favour of the Gauteng department on amendments to the admissions regulations.The federation wanted the regulations removed because they were not reasonable and justifiable in terms of the Gauteng Schools Education Act of 1995. The federation said there was conflict in regulations between provincial and national legislation.The court ruled that there was not conflict between the two sets of regulations.