A father who owes a private school R150,000 in school fees has brought an urgent application in court to force it to release his daughter’s first-term report card.
The man, whose 13-year-old daughter is in grade 8 at Mitchell House in Polokwane, brought the application against, among others, the school and its principal Stephen Lowry, as well as its governing body and the school’s lawyer, Gert Ehlers.
He is seeking an order declaring that their refusal to release the report is “unlawful”.
However, the school says that despite the father’s “dire” financial position, “he still somehow persists with his view that his child must continue to school at Mitchell House but without paying for such schooling”.
“The legal basis on which the applicant can rely on free education from a private school is totally unclear,” it said in court documents.
It also asked the court to require that the father provide R400,000 in security to ensure he would be able to pay the legal costs of the application.
The father, who cannot be named to protect the his child’s identity, argues that withholding the report is in breach of basic education minister Angie Motshekga’s established 2011 national protocol for assessment.
He is also seeking an order declaring that Ehlers be held personally liable for the costs of the application “for ill-advising” the school, the principal and the governing body “to contravene the minister’s national protocol”.
The matter has been set down for Tuesday in the Polokwane high court.
In an e-mail dated March 17 and included in court papers, the father informed the school that “there seems to be a persistent effort to frustrate the smooth running of my daughter’s academic programme as I am not receiving any information or updates in respect of any school activities”.
Responding to his e-mail, the school informed him through Ehlers that there was no longer an existing contract between himself and the school.
The father said in court documents that in another e-mail, dated March 20, the school indicated that his daughter was not added to the school’s administration system “due to the fact that the school has no contract with you as the parent”.
“The educators of the school have been asked to keep an independent record of her work completed and marked. They have done so anticipating that we will have to generate a report in future,” the school wrote.
It told him it could easily generate a report once the outstanding court case has been resolved.
In January the father got an interim order allowing his daughter to remain at school pending a separate application challenging the legality and constitutionality of an earlier decision by the school to exclude the girl and her two siblings from Mitchell House with effect from the end of September 2021 because of nonpayment of fees.
One of the daughters has since matriculated and the other has moved to a different school.
The school’s application for leave to appeal the January judgment was dismissed last month, and Ehlers confirmed in court papers that he had been instructed to petition the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
Basic education department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga told the Sunday Times there was no policy on the withholding of report cards at private schools.
“The understanding is that parents enter into contracts with the schools, binding themselves to these agreements.”
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