In an extraordinary move, a parent has gone to court to stop a provincial education department from appointing a principal to a school until a dispute over the dismissal of the previous headmaster has been resolved.
Craig Dowman, a parent of a Grade 12 pupil at Heathfield High School in Cape Town, is seeking an interim order from the Western Cape High Court to interdict the department from going ahead with its recruitment process for a new head for the institution.
His application comes in the wake of former principal Wesley Neumann's dismissal on 20 May 2022 for defying an instruction to open his school during the Covid-19 pandemic.