Western Cape school closure decision set aside

A decision to close 17 Western Cape schools at the end of last year was set aside on Wednesday.

   

Western Cape High Court judges Andre le Grange and Nape Dolamo ruled that the reasons given for the closures were brief and that the public consultation process that followed was inadequate.

   

They set aside Western Cape education MEC Donald Grant's decision, made in October to go into effect from December 31, and ordered him and his department to pay the legal costs of the schools and their governing bodies.

   

The SA Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu), which was listed as an applicant, was ordered to pay its own costs.

   

Le Grange found that the reasons Grant presented for possible closures were largely inadequate and irrational.

   

"The applicants have demonstrated in the papers filed that the schools the MEC decided to close have remarkable similarities to those he decided to keep open," he said in the judgment.

   

"The difference between the MEC's initial and final reasons for closure at certain schools... in my view gives further credence to the applicants' complaint of irrationality."

   

Regarding the public consultation process, the court found it to be an "artificial formality" and one that fell short of what was reasonably expected.

  

"The manner in which these proceedings were conducted further strengthened the applicants' case. The officials simply allowed the affected parties to say what they wished to say rather than engage, raise, and discuss the reasons."

   

In a minority judgment, Judge Lee Bozalek said he would have set aside Grant's decision for only Beauvallon Senior Secondary School

and that the other schools had failed to make a case.

   

Grant announced last year that 27 schools faced possible closure for various reasons. After representations were made at public hearings, he decided to close 18 schools and transfer pupils to "receiving schools".

   

One of the schools, Tonko Bosman Primary in Somerset West, agreed to the closure.

   

The schools' governing bodies and Sadtu approached the court for  a review of Grant's decision on the closures.

   

The review application was heard last month and judgment was reserved.

   

The provincial department can still appeal the review decision.

   

-Sapa