Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi says he is appealing the Hoërskool Overvaal judgment directly to the Constitutional Court.
His department lost the case when the High Court in Pretoria found that the Afrikaans-medium school did not have the capacity to accommodate 55 black English speaking learners.
The learners have since been placed at neighbouring schools in the Vereeniging area in the Vaal. There’s been a series of protests, which at times turned violent, following the judgment.
Lesufi believes the highest court in the land will rule differently.
“We believe that we have resolved the impasse around Overvaal. That all the political parties, community organisations have agreed to move off from the school and allow the legal process to take its course. I can confirm, yesterday we finalised our documents as the department. We are now approaching the Constitutional Court directly. We are no longer even appealing through the appeals court in Bloemfontein. We’ve taken the decision to approach the Constitutional Court directly on this matter,” says Lesufi.
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Last week, a team of counsellors went to visit Hoërskool Overvaal in Vereeniging in the Vaal to provide counselling to learners.
This after it emerged that many are traumatised as a result of the protests which started outside their school. Some of the protests have turned violent, with a police van being torched in the process. Over 40 protesters have been arrested.
Learning had to be suspended after more protests were held.
