Some aspects of education litigation since 1994 : of hope, concern and despair

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dc.contributor.author Beckmann, Johan L.
dc.contributor.author Prinsloo, Justus G.
dc.date.accessioned 2015-03-02T05:44:18Z
dc.date.available 2015-03-02T05:44:18Z
dc.date.issued 2015-02
dc.description.abstract In this article we report on qualitative research in which we probed the opinions and views of a purposive sample of high-profile and influential role players in education about aspects of education litigation in South Africa since 1994. This year marked the transition to a democratic government in South Africa, and resulted in a new education system, which has led to a great deal of litigation, as was to be expected. Our participants were personally involved in litigation in various capacities. Their responses to our questions reflected hope, but also concern, and even despair. In their opinions almost all of the disputes were between the state and its citizens, and that the state lost virtually all cases. State officials often ignored legal advice and acted on “imagined powers”, causing embarrassment to the state where they seemed insensitive to the needs of the people, and sometimes deliberately transgressed prescripts and provisions, abandoning its mandate to children and the country more broadly. There is extreme concern about the tendency of officials to ignore court orders. No lessons seem to have been learned from judgments and infractions of the same kind occur repeatedly - even if litigation seems to have consumed between 4–6% of the education budget. There was surprise that cases dealt almost exclusively with disputes about stake-holders‟ powers, and that few human rights and social issues have been litigated. Furthermore, individual officials that seemed to suffer no consequences from their unlawful actions and showed an apparent lack of professionalism to acquaint themselves with the legal prescripts that govern their professional work, caused concern for our respondents, as did the destructive role that unions and politicians seemed to play in education. However, litigation has nonetheless led to the clarification of some issues. en_ZA
dc.description.librarian hb2015 en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorship National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant-specific unique reference number (UID) 85795). en_ZA
dc.description.uri http://www.sajournalofeducation.co.za/ en_ZA
dc.identifier.citation Beckmann, JL & Prinsloo, JG 2015, 'Some aspects of education litigation since 1994 : of hope, concern and despair', South African Journal of Education, vol. 35. no. 1, art. #1068, pp. 1-11. en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn 0256-0100
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/43828
dc.language.iso en en_ZA
dc.publisher EASA en_ZA
dc.rights © 2015 EASA en_ZA
dc.subject Concern en_ZA
dc.subject Cost en_ZA
dc.subject Despair en_ZA
dc.subject Hope en_ZA
dc.subject Human resource practices en_ZA
dc.subject Human rights issues en_ZA
dc.subject Imagined power en_ZA
dc.subject Impact en_ZA
dc.subject Lack of professionalism en_ZA
dc.subject Litigation en_ZA
dc.subject Unions en_ZA
dc.title Some aspects of education litigation since 1994 : of hope, concern and despair en_ZA
dc.type Article en_ZA


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