It was nine years ago that a deaf teenager from Durban took the national and provincial health departments to court, asking for an order that would allow him to take South African Sign Language (SASL) as a matric subject.

Kyle Springate, a pupil at Westville Boys’ High School, had to abandon part of his case: it would have been legally impossible for the department to comply as he was due to write his final exams in two months’ time.

But the second part of Springate’s application, which he persisted with, was for the court to force the department to declare SASL an official school subject.