A South African human rights activist and lawyer, Jos Venter, said it is illegal to deny children of undocumented foreign nationals entry at any school in that country.
Venter said this in response to Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie who had called for the children of foreign nationals to be refused entry to South African schools.
Venter said McKenzie’s call was unlawful because education was a basic human right. He said:
It is absolutely illegal and Gayton McKenzie is wrong in his view, wrong in the law and at a practical level, the implementation of the law is problematic.
But we have the 2019 judgment from the Eastern Cape division of the high court, where the court expressly said that, based on a lack of documents, children can’t be refused admission to public schools.
Last week, the South African pressure group Operation Dudula, said its members will camp outside schools across Gauteng Province to prevent undocumented foreign children and teachers to be part of day one of school.
In other news – Undocumented Zimbabwean children struggle to find schools in SA
It is 10:00, and 9-year-old Michael is begging at a set of traffic lights in Johannesburg. Most children his age are back at school after the holidays. But Michael is undocumented.
He has not been in school since 2021, when he used to attend a private school. His family could not afford to keep him there, and the school also gave him notice that he should provide some documentation if he wanted to continue classes, GroundUp reported. Learn More
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