The court orders sought to remedy the lack of appropriate and adequate school facilities at the Grahamstown based special needs school.

According to the application, the Eastern Cape's Member of the Executive Council for Education , The Superintendent-General of the Department of Education and the Minister of Basic Education (the respondents) have not complied with paragraph 1 of the order dated 11th March 2010. The order required that by 1st October 2010, the Eastern Cape Department of Education will:

•  Provide the Grahamstown Amasango Career School ("the Amasango School") with six prefabricated classrooms;
• Ensure that four toilets are built at the Amasango School;
•  1.3 Provide a library to the Amasango School in the form of three containers that have been converted into library and storage facilities."

To date, no part of that paragraph of the order has been complied with. No prefabricated classrooms, toilets or library have been provided to the school.

The respondents have also failed to comply with paragraph 2 of the court order dated 19th August 2010 which required them "within two months of the date of this order, to develop a reasonable plan in consultation with the applicant to provide proper, appropriate and adequate school facilities and forthwith to implement the plan so developed."

The Director of the LRC in Grahamstown, Sarah Sephton, said: "We have been extraordinarily respectful of and patient with the respondents. We have sought to resolve this matter constructively despite the repeated breaches of court imposed deadlines and repeated breaches of undertakings given at meetings.

"We have resorted to the present route of contempt most reluctantly. We were deeply anxious (and remain so) that adopting the litigious route would (and will) undermine our relationship with the respondents, which affect all aspects of the School."

Amasango School started operations in 1995 in two shipping containers. The School has a long history of successfully rehabilitating street children and other out-of-school children, with many former learners returning to mainstream high schools and one student who attended Rhodes University.

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The LRC is an independent, non-profit, public interest law clinic, which uses law as an instrument of justice to provide legal services for the vulnerable.