Western Cape High Court forces WCED to act on late learner placements within six months
Equal Education at an earlier march for unplaced learners.
Image: Ayanda Ndamane / Independent Newspapers
The Western Cape High Court has slammed the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) failure to plan for late placements and ordered it to develop within a six months plan to deal with late admissions in its schools.
Equal Education (EE) and the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC), who launched the application, hailed the judgment confirming that learners from Khayelitsha, Kraaifontein, Kuilsriver, Strand, and surrounding areas have an equal right to basic education.
The applicants successfully asked that the court declare the department’s failure to plan for and timeously place late applicant learners in schools is unconstitutional and in violation of their rights to dignity and equality, among others.
Over the years, learners from poor, working-class backgrounds have faced persistent systemic barriers to accessing education in the Western Cape, due to the Western Cape government’s exclusionary, non-poor approach, the court was told.
It was argued that for over a decade, the department has continued to approach late and extremely late learner admission applications in a way that excludes learners from poor and working-class backgrounds.
The court held that the department’s Learner Admission Policy is not just inefficient, but it is discriminatory, unconstitutional, and structurally biased against black working-class and marginalised communities.
After years of advocacy, litigation, and mobilisation led by EE and the EELC, the court has now held that the department has systemically failed to plan for and manage late, extremely late, and transfer applications, resulting in thousands of learners being left without school places for unreasonable periods year after year.
The court found that the WCED’s admissions crisis is not incidental but entrenched and systemic.
Equal Education said this is a reality the department has ignored despite years of legal advocacy and community mobilisation demanding change.
The court noted: “This is a systemic existential problem which the WCED does not deem important to prioritise and resolve… Instead, it attempts to deal with it when the problem presents itself – on a case-by-case basis.”
The court rejected the WCED’s narrative that parents are responsible for late applications, finding that the department has fundamentally misunderstood its constitutional duties.
Equal Education said: “The parents, who are represented by the EELC and EE, are aware of their responsibility to secure school places for their children. However, they continue to face challenges, including that many schools are oversubscribed and without enough school places.”
It added that it is the duty of the Western Cape Education MEC to ensure that there are enough school places for learners in the province.
The court reminded the WCED of its constitutional duty towards learners who are seeking to access education in the Western Cape. Equal Education said that for years, the WCED has blamed parents for late applications while ignoring that families apply late because of circumstances beyond their control – death of a caregiver, domestic violence, abuse, forced relocation for work, or poverty-driven instability.
“These are the families the EELC and EE have advocated for and represented in court – families the system has continued to fail.”
In one of the most significant aspects of the judgment, the court held that the WCED’s admissions system indirectly discriminates against a defined group of learners.
“It is an undeniable truth that the group of late applicants is disproportionately black, poor, and mostly from rural areas… the differentiation leads to unfair discrimination,” Judge Babalwa Mantame, who wrote the judgment, said.
The court also found that because the WCED has failed to plan for predictable late admissions, learners from marginalised communities were disproportionately left unplaced, sometimes for months, while others secured schooling.
The court made it clear that exclusion from school is not a technical or administrative inconvenience, but that it is harmful and violates children’s dignity.