A SOUTH African court has ordered an all white school to enrol black children previously barred from admission. The decision, announced in Pretoria yesterday, follows a three week stand off between right wing parents at the Afrikaner primary school in Potgietersrus, Northern Province, and the mainly black provincial government.
The judgment was welcomed by the provincial premier, Mr Ngoako Ramathlodi, of the African National Congress, who said that black children could be attending the school as soon as next week. It was the school's duty to guarantee the safety and equal treatment of black pupils, he said, but if necessary the security forces would be deployed to protect them from white parents and pupils.
The Potgietersrus dispute began three weeks ago when white parents in khaki clothing the traditional uniform of right wing Afrikaners prevented three black children from enrolling at the state funded school and assaulted a local television crew.
The school authorities claimed that the children were being turned away to protect the school's Afrikaans language traditions and because there was no place for them. The school board denied its actions or motives were in any way racist, and last week parents voted to continue their blockade despite threats of legal action by the provincial government.
In a written judgment yesterday Judge T. T. Spoelstra described the school's claim that admitting the black children would threaten its Afrikaner traditions as "so far fetched as to border on the ridiculous". There were 22 black children on the school's application list and even if they were all admitted the ratio of Afrikaans speaking pupils to English speaking pupils would still be six to one, he noted.
The judge ordered the school to abandon discrimination weather on the basis of class, language or race, and to admit all 22 black pupils. He also ordered the school to take all necessary steps to ensure the black children were not subjected to intimidation or discrimination.
Under apartheid most state spending on education was directed towards white schools, while black education was deliberately run down. In the last days of the old regime many whites only schools, like the Potgietersrus school were handed over to parent bodies while retaining their rights to state funding, a move which allowed white privilege to survive the hand over to the ANC.
Most of these schools were prepared to admit non white pupils when the time came. The Potgietersrus school is the first to openly defy the new order.
The National Minister for Education, Mr Sibusiso Bengu, yesterday praised the provincial government for taking the school to court rather than using its powers to close it or withdraw funds.
A spokesman for the school said it was disappointed at the decision and would be applying for leave to appeal.
The judgment was bitterly condemned by the Afrikaner Volksfront, a right wing organisation seeking a separate homeland for Afrikaners.