A run-down Cape Flats school which faced imminent closure can teach for another day after the Western Cape High Court granted an interim interdict to keep it open.
Uitsig High School can now stay open, pending a separate Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling on the school’s future.
Since last year, trade union Cosatu, education activists and the community of Uitsig, near Elsies River, have demonstrated and petitioned the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) to keep the school in the gang-infested area open.
In 2017, Education MEC Debbie Schäfer ordered that pupils be moved to the nearby Ravensmead High School because their school had been vandalised so badly that it was deemed too unsafe to continue schooling.
The Western Cape High Court ruled last year in favour of Schäfer, to close the school.
Cosatu, though, is appealing against that ruling at the SCA.
Parents said it would be difficult to send their children to schools outside the area, and instead appealed to the WCED to repair the school.
In granting the interim order on Wednesday, Acting Judge Thabani Masuku said the crucial question was whether the department’s decision to close down the school could be suspended pending an SCA decision.
He ordered that the school be reopened and that the WCED pay the fees of Cosatu’s legal representatives.
Schäfer said: “We are extremely saddened that learners are going to have to continue attending a school where they are not receiving the best education we can give them.”
Schäfer said the school would be reopened as soon as possible “in compliance with the order”.
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