Johannesburg — MPUMALANGA's Hoerskool Ermelo lost a final court bid on Friday to stop the province from forcing it to admit English-speaking pupils.

The Pretoria High Court dismissed an application for leave to appeal against the court's earlier ruling that the school had to admit English-speaking children a day after principal Koos Kruger was suspended by the province's education department.

Three judges have described the "insensitivity" of the Hoërskool Ermelo and its governing body to students who did not want to be taught in Afrikaans as "shocking".

Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe and Judges Willie Seriti and Natvarial Ranchod dismissed with costs the school's application for leave to appeal against their judgment -- which put another nail in the coffin of Afrikaans-only education in state schools.

"We received the ruling this morning and I will discuss what to do next with the school management this weekend," said the school's lawyer, Johan van der Wath.

The Mpumalanga education department refused to give reasons for Kruger's suspension, saying reasons would be given at the conclusion of Kruger's January 30 disciplinary hearing. He remained on full pay until then. Department spokesman Hlahla Ngwenya said Ermelo circuit manager Frank Hlatshwayo had been appointed caretaker principal of the school in the interim.

The education department was turning the Ermelo problem into "a political circus", said Anthony Benadie, the Democratic Alliance's (DA's) Mpumalanga education spokesman.

The DA had established that one of the allegations against Kruger was that he had failed to report to the education department on Afrikaans-speaking pupils' admission applications, although this responsibility had been removed as a principal's competency in March last year, Benadie said.

" The department is holding the principal responsible for things they told him not to do. Clearly, the interests of the school, the learners -- both English and Afrikaans -- the school governing body and the provision of quality education are no longer the issue, but rather the hidden political agenda of the African National Congress being driven by departmental officials," Benadie said.

Education MEC Siphosizwe Masango should immediately make the grounds for Kruger's suspension public, he said.

It is alleged the school separated the entire English-speaking intake for this year from the Afrikaans-speaking children and had not taught them anything since inland schools opened on January 9.

AfriForum, a civil society body established by trade union Solidarity, said it regarded Kruger's suspension as "an act of aggression against Afrikaans, Afrikaans schools, the Afrikaans-speaking public, and the principle of mother-tongue education".

Education Minister Naledi Pandor stripped the school of its Afrikaans-medium status last year, saying the other five schools in the area were overcrowded and the school had to help out.

Last year, Hoerskool Ermelo, which can accommodate 1200 pupils, had 589 enrolled, while the other five schools in the circuit had capacity for 3075 and had enrolled 3860. While Ermelo had now taken on more than 100 English-speaking children it had not yet been assigned any more teachers to help with this new load, Benadie said. With Sapa