The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), based at Wits University, has approached the courts to compel a school to obey the laws protecting poor parents who cannot afford school fees.

CALS said in a statement that the move was a test case aimed at addressing a “nationwide, systematic failure by many schools to enforce the laws that protected these parents”.

It said that it hoped to improve the legal protection available to underprivileged parents and learners who could not afford school fees. The organisation also hoped to increase public awareness of the problem.

CALS has been providing legal advice and legal assistance to poor parents and learners on school fees related matters since 2002. The nature of the assistance provided by CALS has included providing legal assistance in complaints where poor learners have been discriminated against because of the non-payment of school fees by being denied access to schools; or having reports or other services provided by a school withheld; defending claims for outstanding school fees where parents are entitled to either full or partial exemptions, or rescinding judgements taken against poor parents who ought to have been exempted from the payment of school fees; and assisting parents attempting to make application for exemptions from the payment of school fees.

Between 2005 and 2006, CALS has been approached by different parents with complaints against Hunt Secondary School, a school based in Durban. In two of the matters, CALS successfully rescinded default judgments taken against very poor single mothers for outstanding school fees. In terms of the law, both women were eligible for exemptions from the payment of school fees and should not have been sued. In both cases, these women have attempted to apply to the school for exemptions from the payment of schools fees, which exemption applications were not processed in terms of the law. There have also been incidents of their children being embarrassed at school for nonpayment of school fees. CALS attorneys have also extracted at least ten other case files of other similarly situated and similarly treated parents by the school.

This suggests that the school persists in its flagrant violation of the legal framework, as set out in the South African Schools Act read with the Exemption of Parents from the Payment of Schools Fees Regulations, particularly those sections relating to the granting of exemptions and the antidiscrimination provisions. CALS and its legal team therefore seek to interdict the school from suing for unpaid school fees in circumstances where parents of learners at the school qualify for exemptions from school fees; compel the school to begin to lawfully process exemption applications for eligible parents; and interdict the school from in anyway harassing or discriminating against learners whose parents have not paid school fees.

“CALS, together with the two mothers as co-applicants, brought this case on behalf of the two mothers, as well as other poor parents and learners at the school whose rights in terms of the law continue to be thwarted by the school. We hope that this case, which is the first of its kind, will begin to remedy the nationwide systemic failure by many schools to implement the laws protecting poor parents and learners,” the statement concluded.