Parents unhappy with Laerskool Theresapark phasing out Afrikaans immediately, protested outside the school Friday morning.

“If we don’t see any change, we will go to the human rights commission,” said Bittereinders spokesperson Devon Hofmeyr.

Bittereinders, the community-based organisation at the helm of the demonstration, also handed a memorandum of demands to Gauteng education department officials.

Hofmeyr, son of Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr, said the situation was unacceptable and that they would escalate their actions if “equality” was not achieved.

“We want equality at these schools,” he said.

The language dispute at the school arose earlier this month when the school’s governing body reportedly decided that it wanted to phase out Afrikaans-only classes immediately, which parents say was not in line with an earlier agreement with them.

According to them, the earlier agreement was that Afrikaans-only classes would only be phased out when the grade 5 learners reached grade 7 in 2024.

The organisation added that it would take legal action against the department if their grievances were not attended to.

They demanded that the learners taking Afrikaans-only classes would be permitted to complete their primary school education in Afrikaans.

Other demands included that Afrikaans-only learners be moved from the storeroom to “acceptable” classes and that the Gauteng education department investigated who was responsible for what was happening.

Another demand was that all learners at the school be “treated with respect, equality and good-heartedness”.

The memorandum was handed over to Tshwane West district director Yvonne Mooke.

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Parents were up in arms when a message that the Afrikaans-only learners were to leave the school almost immediately, was circulated.

This instruction regarding the alleged immediate phasing out of the language at the school reportedly came from its school governing body.

Accepting the memorandum, Mooke said the department had since written to the governing body notifying them that their intentions to remove the affected learners was illegal.

“We have convened a meeting to meet with them on Monday. Head office will be here to deal with the matter,” she said.

Mooke also added that these learners had the right to receive an education.

“Afrikaans learners also have got a right to an education. No policy allows anybody to remove them from the school.”

Gauteng education department spokesperson Steve Mabona said they “have interacted with the school governing body”.

“They intended to chase out learners in the school. We can’t be doing that because of a language they happen to be taught in. If a language is taught in a school, all individuals have a right to access the school,” he said.

Mabona, however, said that with time the number of Afrikaans-only learners began to dwindle at the school.

“This school was previously a dual-medium school, but over time the area’s demographics changed. That meant that the numbers of those who would prefer Afrikaans only, dwindled.”

As a result, he said, Setswana was added as the other language that learners and parents could choose from.

Mabona further said that there was no need for the school governing body to be so “draconian” as everything had to be done in line with the law.

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