AB and Another v Pridwin Preparatory School and Others

The applicants were parents of two minor boys enrolled at Pridwin Preparatory School, an elite independent school in Johannesburg. Admission required the conclusion of a Parent Contract, which included a clause allowing either party to terminate the contract on one term’s notice, for any reason. Over several years, the father engaged in persistently aggressive, disruptive, and abusive conduct towards staff, coaches, and officials at sporting events, despite warnings and a settlement agreement regulating his behaviour. Following a further serious incident at soccer trials in June 2016, the headmaster terminated the Parent Contract in terms of the notice clause, giving extended notice. The parents challenged the termination, arguing that it was unconstitutional and invalid because it infringed the children’s rights to basic education and to have their best interests treated as paramount, and because it occurred without affording the children or parents a hearing.

Leave to appeal was granted. The appeal was upheld and the order of the Supreme Court of Appeal was set aside. The decision by Pridwin Preparatory School to cancel the Parent Contract was declared invalid and set aside. Each party was ordered to pay its own costs in all courts.

The case is a leading authority on the horizontal application of children’s constitutional rights in the context of private education. It clarifies that independent schools, though not bearing a positive duty to provide basic education, must exercise contractual powers in a manner consistent with the Constitution, particularly the best interests of the child and procedural fairness. The judgment reshapes the intersection between contract law and constitutional values in private schooling.