Journal for Juridical Science

The scope of reasonable cultural and religious accommodation in public schools in South Africa, with a focus on ancestral callings experienced by learners

Carita Visser — 2024-12-13

This article examines the scope of reasonable cultural and religious accommodation in South African public schools, with a focus on ancestral callings experienced by learners. It analyses the relevant legislative framework and key court decisions shaping jurisprudence on this issue. The authors argue that schools must balance protecting sincerely held beliefs against maintaining an effective learning environment for all students. They recommend formal exemption procedures and a consultative approach involving parents, cultural leaders, and education authorities to determine appropriate accommodations, particularly for complex situations such as ancestral callings. The article concludes that reasonable efforts should be made to accommodate diversity in schools without imposing undue burdens.

The challenges of litigating the right to basic education in South Africa: Is the right realisable immediately or subject to resource limitation?

Hoolo Nyane — 2024-12-13

The right to education is embodied in section 29 of the South African Constitution. Section 29(1) distinguishes between the right to basic education and the right to further education: the former is unqualified, while the right to further education has an internal qualifier. Like other socio-economic rights in the Constitution – such as the rights to housing, healthcare, food, water and social security – the right to further education imposes a positive obligation on the state to take reasonable measures within available means to realise the right progressively. The courts’ approach to this duality has thus far been that the right to basic education, unlike the right to further education, does not depend on the availability of resources or progressive realisation: it is “realisable immediately”. The difficulty with this approach is that it assumes that the right to basic education can be enforceable without resource implications as a limitation common to all socio-economic rights. The purpose of this article is to interrogate this assumption. The central hypothesis is that the right to education can be better realised if it is understood as an economic right par excellence subject to the common limitations applicable to the enforceability of economic rights in South Africa and at the international level.

Children’s inalienable rights of access to basic nutrition in South African public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic

Raj Mestry — 2024-12-13

The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) is one of the government’s social justice and equity initiatives to provide learners in poor schools with nutritious meals that will enable them to progress academically. The programme is funded from the Conditional Grant managed by National Treasury. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, schools closed intermittently, and government suspended the NSNP indefinitely. The Minister of Education announced that when schools reopen, the NSNP will be restored. Conditions over time improved and schools reopened. However, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) reneged on their promise to reinstate the NSNP. This sparked public outcry. Interest groups such as Equal Education, Equal Education Law Centre, and SECTION27 took the Minister of Education to court for violating the constitutional and statutory duties. The outcome of this case had dire consequences for all stakeholders. Using qualitative research within an interpretivist paradigm, we critically analyse the court case between Education Law Centre and Others. The Minister of Education. We also undertake an empirical study in Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces. Six school leaders (five principals and one deputy principal) are interviewed to determine their experiences and perceptions of measures taken when NSNP was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three themes emerge, namely the ramifications of COVID-19 on poor parents and children: the schools’ inability to provide nutritious meals to children, and creative ways to help needy children from malnutrition and starvation. Findings reveal that some schools were unable to feed learners, due to financial constraints and lack of capacity, while others found innovative ways to provide learners with nutritious meals

Challenges experienced by public secondary school teachers in the application of the legal framework for their safety

Amogelang Mokonyane — 2024-12-13

The safety of teachers in public schools is important for the creation of a conducive teaching and learning environment. The application of the South African legal framework should ensure that teachers work in a safe environment. The phrase ‘teacher safety’ refers to the safeguarding of teachers from harm, including physical, psychological, and emotional injury. Sec. 12 of South Africa’s Constitution (1996) ensures teachers’ safety, and various local and international studies have examined their safety. The existing studies lack an exploration of the way in which the legal framework has been applied to ensure teachers’ safety from violence in public schools. The investigation reported in this article pivots on the following research question: What challenges do public secondary school teachers experience in applying the legal framework for their safety? To respond to this question, qualitative research was conducted. Data were collected using semistructured interviews. Purposive sampling was used to recruit ten experienced participants (five teachers and five principals) from five public secondary schools in the Ngaka Modiri Molema District of the North-West province of South Africa. The data were then thematically analysed. The main finding of the study is that, while there are sufficient legal measures that regulate teachers’ safety, there is a lack in the application thereof to ensure teachers’ safety in public secondary schools. This is one of the contributory factors to violence against teachers. The existing legal framework provisions should be applied by teachers to safeguard them against violence.