4 December 2025
Education (EE) and the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) celebrate the Western Cape High Court’s groundbreaking judgment delivered on Friday, 28 November 2025, confirming that learners from Khayelitsha, Kraaifontein, Kuilsriver, Strand, and surrounding areas have an equal right to basic education.
On 24 April 2025, EE and the EELC appeared in the Western Cape High Court to ask that the court declare the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) failure to plan for and timeously place late applicant learners in schools unconstitutional and in violation of their rights to dignity and equality, among others.
Over the years, learners from poor, working-class backgrounds have faced persistent systemic barriers to accessing education in the Western Cape, due to the Western Cape government’s exclusionary, non-poor approach. Finally, the Western Cape High Court has decisively ruled against this unjust approach.
For over a decade, the WCED has continued to approach late and extremely late learner admission applications in a way that excludes learners from poor and working-class backgrounds. The Court held that the WCED’s Learner Admission Policy is not just inefficient, but it is discriminatory, unconstitutional, and structurally biased against Black working-class and marginalised communities.
After years of advocacy, litigation, and mobilisation led by EE and the EELC, the Court has now held that the WCED has systemically failed to plan for and manage late, extremely late, and transfer applications, resulting in thousands of learners being left without school places for unreasonable periods year after year.
The Court found that the WCED’s admissions crisis is not incidental but entrenched and systemic – a reality the WCED has ignored despite years of legal advocacy and community mobilisation demanding change. The Court noted the following:
“This is a systemic existential problem which the WCED does not deem important to prioritise and resolve… [Instead] it attempts to deal with it when the problem presents itself – on a case-by-case basis.”
The Court rejected the WCED’s narrative that parents are responsible for late applications, finding that the Department has fundamentally misunderstood its constitutional duties. The parents, who are represented by the EELC and EE, are aware of their responsibility to secure school places for their children. However, they continue to face challenges, including that many schools are oversubscribed and without enough school places. It is the duty of the Western Cape Education MEC to ensure that there are enough school places for learners in the province. In the judgment, the Court reminded the WCED of its constitutional duty towards learners who are seeking to access education in the Western Cape:
“The WCED misconceives the extent of its responsibilities… It cannot just ‘sit back and wait’ without being proactive in the fulfilment of its constitutional responsibilities.”
For years, the WCED has blamed parents for late applications while ignoring that families apply late because of circumstances beyond their control – death of a caregiver, domestic violence, abuse, forced relocation for work, or poverty-driven instability. These are the families the EELC and EE have advocated for and represented in court – families the system has continued to fail.
In one of the most significant aspects of the judgment, the Court held that the WCED’s admissions system indirectly discriminates against a defined group of learners. Noting:
“It is an undeniable truth that the group of late applicants is disproportionately Black, poor, and mostly from rural areas… the differentiation leads to unfair discrimination.”
Furthermore, the Court found that because the WCED has failed to plan for predictable late admissions, learners from marginalised communities were disproportionately left unplaced, sometimes for months, while others secured schooling. The Court made it clear that exclusion from school is not a technical or administrative inconvenience, but that it is harmful and violates children’s dignity. This discriminatory impact, the Court found, is constitutionally impermissible and violates learners’ rights to equality, dignity, and just administrative action. The Court held unequivocally that unequal access to the admission process is discrimination and that a learner who is not placed at the start of the academic year may suffer long-term psychological damage.
The Court struck down clause 13 of the WCED’s Learner Admission Policy – the section of the Policy that governs late admissions. The Court held that clause 13 fails to accommodate late, extremely late, and transfer applicants, and produces discriminatory outcomes. The problems the court highlighted about the clause included that it lacks timelines, creates no accountability, provides no clear process for vulnerable learners, and allows poor and marginalised learners to remain unplaced indefinitely.
Court orders a systemic reform – including a detailed management plan within six months
The Court has ordered that the WCED produce a revised, rights-aligned, admissions management plan within six months. Importantly, the Court noted that in the process of the review of the WCED’s Learner Admission Policy, the public must be consulted. The plan must include: clear timelines, designated responsible officials, systems for engaging parents who lack documents and hotspot-based planning for high-demand, low-capacity areas. The Court stressed that it is crucial that stakeholders are listened to on how resources should be allocated and how the systemic issues can be addressed. In its judgment, the Court encouraged the WCED to collaborate with EE and the EELC to resolve learner admission challenges in the Western Cape. We welcome this call and stand ready to work constructively and meaningfully alongside the WCED. Our hope is that this is a call the WCED will finally step up to in order to ensure seamless processes for accessing education that serve all learners in the Western Cape.
This judgment is a major victory in the struggle against education inequality. It is a profound legal recognition of the lived experience of thousands of Black and marginalised learners who have been pushed out of the system through no fault of their own.
The judgment affirms four critical principles
- The right to basic education is immediate and cannot be delayed
- Policies must not discriminate by impact, even unintentionally
- Education departments must plan proactively for vulnerable learners,
- No child may be excluded because of migration, poverty, or late application.
EE and the EELC call on the WCED to begin formal consultations and draft a revised admissions management plan that complies with the Constitution and fixes the discriminatory impacts identified by the Court.
EE and the EELC will monitor compliance with the order, participate meaningfully in the public consultation process, and continue advocating for an admission system that places equality, dignity, and children’s best interests at the centre.
#SofundaSonke
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To arrange a media interview, contact:
- Ayanda Sishi-Wigzell (Equal Education Communications Manager) ayanda@equaleducation.org.za or 076 879 3017
- Jay-Dee Booysen (Equal Education Law Centre Media and Communications Specialist) jay-dee@eelawcentre.org.za or 082 924 1352