The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) has instituted an innovative opt-in class action in the Grahamstown High Court against the government which will allow any school in the Eastern Cape to join a massive court case.
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) has instituted an innovative opt-in class action in the Grahamstown High Court against the government which will allow any school in the Eastern Cape to join a massive court case.
The action will seek to force the Department of Education to permanently appoint teachers to vacant posts and to reimburse schools that have been forced to pay teachers whom the state was required to pay.
Initially, about 32 schools had asked the court to order the department to reimburse them R25 million.
This was for teacher salaries the schools had been forced to pay out of school funds.
They also asked the court to order the department to permanently fill all vacant teacher posts in line with the 2014 teacher post establishment.
The institution of the class action means that any public school with unfilled vacant substantive teacher posts, or that have not yet been reimbursed salary payments, may join the 32 schools for similar relief.
The LRC placed a page 3 display advertisement in the Daily Dispatch on Wednesday calling on schools to join the class action voluntarily.
Schools that opt in will be required to deliver a written notice by 30 April 2014, setting out details of their vacant posts and amounts paid by the school to teachers occupying vacant substantive posts in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 "in order to seek appropriate relief and further ancillary relief".
Schools may opt into the class action by sending this written notice to the LRC in Grahamstown.
The department has undertaken to try and settle all valid claims and fill all permanent posts without the matter having to go back to court.
Spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said in a joint statement with the LRC that this was in line with a collective agreement reached with teacher unions. The deal aimed at permanently appointing temporary teachers to vacant substantive posts and moving teachers from schools where they were not needed, to schools where they were.
“The department, as an act of goodwill and appreciation to schools who may have genuinely assisted in alleviating the educator crisis by temporarily appointing and remunerating educators during the 2013 academic year, will in terms of the agreement, reimburse schools with valid claims.”
The LRC said in the joint statement it applauded the department for recognising that settling the class action would ensure an improvement in the quality of teaching and learning.
