Lessons from the 'minimum core' approach to the right to basic education in South Africa

South Africa's Constitutional Court has seemed notoriously reluctant to accept that socio-economic rights have a 'minimum core'. Following Mazibuko v City of Johannesburg, the Constitutional Court is generally viewed as having rejected a minimum core approach altogether. However, the position in relation to the right to basic education has been much less clearcut. The courts have never expressly disowned a minimum core approach to basic education. In fact, the Constitutional Court in AB v Pridwin Preparatory School implicitly acknowledged that the state is obliged to provide education of a certain quality or standard. There is also a line of case law in which the right to basic education has been given minimum content: The courts have held that it includes a right to textbooks, classroom furniture, basic infrastructure, sufficient teachers, transport and, more recently, nutrition. We argue that three lessons may be drawn from this 'minimum core' type approach. First, there is scope for courts to further develop the content of the right to basic education by specifying not only minimum inputs but also minimum outcomes entailed by the right. This shift in the jurisprudence, from inputs to outcomes, may be needed to hold government to account and ensure that the right to basic education is more than just an on-paper promise. Second, the 'minimum core' approach in the basic education context could also be applied to the interpretation and development of other immediately realisable rights recognised by the Constitution, such as the right of every child to basic nutrition. Third, jurisprudence on the right to basic education demonstrates the potential for developing the minimum content of progressively realisable socio-economic rights.