Children with severe intellectual disability win the right to education: In 2011 an important case was heard in the Western Cape High Court. A group of NGOs caring for 1000 children with profound (extreme) intellectual disability brought a case against the government. These children cannot attend ‘special’ schools for children who have moderate to mild disabilities. The NGOs said the children were being denied their rights because the state did not give them a suitable basic education and was neglecting them. The government case tried to say that, ‘no amount of education would be beneficial’ to the children. The defendants proved this wrong and the state was ordered to provide: 1) appropriate education; 2) money to set up facilities at the NGO institutions; 3) paid staff and training; 4) transport for the children to the centres.

Wheelchair-user wins right to attend local school: In 2010 a mother, Lettie Oortman, took a case about her daughter to the Equality Court. She said that her child had to attend the local St Thomas Aquinas Private school in Witbank, as there was no special school nearby. The school had made some infrastructural changes to help the girl, but too few, and she left the school. The court upheld the law in that it requires ‘reasonable accommodation’ to be made for people with disabilities. To fulfil this it ordered the school to re-admit the girl, and to make sure she had what she needed to learn there. These things included building ramps and a wheelchair-friendly toilet (that is, one with more space so that a wheelchair can enter, and with wall-grips to help a person get onto and off the toilet).

Activists force KZN Education Department to enrol learners with disabilities: In 2014 a human rights activist group, Section 27, started campaigning to get seventeen children with physical and/or intellectual disabilities in Mangusi, in KwaZulu-Natal, into a suitable school. After a year of no progress they threatened to take the matter to court. The KZN Education Department promised all a place at Sisizakele Primary School, along with many other learners with disabilities. While this has happened, Section 27 is following up on the inadequate facilities, equipment and staffing for these children at the school.

Widespread neglect of children with disabilities in South Africa: This report gives many personal cases of children excluded from school, parents unable to find places as they are far from schools, and describes how many of those who try to go to school are neglected and even abused: Click here.