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Independent Port Elizabeth school EduPlanet will be reopening after the school was closed down by the Eastern Cape department of education through a court interdict in February.
In a statement, the school said it was officially registered on Tuesday “amid jubilation by parents and pupils who were left in the dark after the closure of the school” in Eveready Road. Struandale.
They plan to reopen again on 18 April, “when all schools open”.
The founder of the school, Charl Meyer, a veteran in offering private schooling, said it would not benefit anybody to look back at the circumstances that led to the “unfortunate closure” of the school.
“We are all delighted that the interest of the children who benefited from the high standard of education offered by EduPlanet has finally triumphed. EduPlanet has one and one mission only, and that is to serve and educate its pupils and to prepare them to enter society after school as literate, disciplined and highly motivated members of society.”
About 300 pupils had earlier been advised to find alternative schools in February after the Grahamstown High Court in effect shut down the school because of a dispute about its registration application. The school’s owner and the parents, however, protested against this, as there appeared to be unanswered questions around why the department would act against a school that had been trying to follow the process towards registration.
The school was the only one named by the department in its urgent court interdict. It said it was was in a “battle against unregistered schools” and had identified six other unregistered schools it was also going after.
The Eastern Cape has consistently remained the lowest-performing province every year when matric results are announced. Particularly government schools struggle. The 2016 matric class improved the province’s pass rate by 2.5 percentage points, from 56.8% in 2015 to 59.3%, which includes the results of progressed pupils.
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