REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA COMBINED SECOND PERIODIC REPORT UNDER THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLE`S RIGHTS and INITIAL REPORT UNDER THE PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA targets is that the proportion of girls attending primary, secondary and tertiary education has improved significantly. 334. Having achieved almost universal access to primary education, South Africa is now focusing on improving the quality of the education, expanding the provision of infrastructure, facilities and learning resources, and strengthening the capacity of the educator cadre to deliver an enhanced range and quality of basic education. Case law 194 195 335. During the period under review important court decisions contributed to improve the realization of the right to education. The judgment in The Governing Body of Rivonia Primary School v The MEC of the Gauteng Department of Education194 highlights the continued racial disparities in our schooling system as the court found that school governing bodies may not have an unqualified power to decide upon the admission policy to public schools. 336. In Head of Department, Department of Education, Free State Province v Welkom High School; Head of Department, Department of Education, Free State Province v Harmony High School195 the Court considered the rights of pregnant learners and policies which state that pregnant learners must be absent from school for a certain period of time. In this case, a 16-year old learner in Grade 10 at Harmony High School in the Free State fell pregnant. She continued attending classes and passed her grade 10 examinations. The following year she returned for grade 11 and attended classes for the first and second terms. During the winter school holidays she gave birth. She then returned to school for the third and part of the fourth school terms. In October, only a month before final examinations and in accordance with the school’s pregnancy policy, the learner and her mother were instructed that she would not be admitted to school for the remainder of the year and should return only in January of the next year. This meant that the learner would not be allowed to write her year-end examinations and would then have to repeat grade 11. 337. The Court found that these policies violate pregnant learners’ constitutional rights and therefore ordered that the policies must be reviewed. The Court considered the policies and found that the policies differentiated between male learners and female learners. At Harmony High School only pregnant learners (or learners who have given birth) are required to leave school – male learners who are equally responsible for the pregnancy are permitted to continue their education without interruption and the policy contains no provisions regarding a “leave of absence” for paternity purposes. Therefore the policies lead to unfair discrimination, as it treats boys and girls differently. 2012 (5) BCLR 537 (GSJ) 2013 (9) BCLR 989 (CC) 97