The Western Cape High Court has delivered a definitive ruling on the scope of interim maintenance orders. In a recent ruling, it clarified that a parental obligation to cover “all educational costs” extends to tertiary education.
The matter arose from an ongoing divorce action originally instituted in August 2022. In August 2025, the Strand Regional Court granted a pendente lite (interim) maintenance order requiring the father, T.M.F.K., to pay “all the children’s educational costs”. Following the issuance of the order, the father ceased paying the university fees for his eldest daughter, S[…], who is currently in her third year of studying towards an LLB degree at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He argued that the order’s wording applied strictly to school-level expenses, and asserted that the mother, D.J.K., was now solely responsible for university budgets.
The father’s refusal left an outstanding balance of over R7,000 and threatened to block the student’s registration for the 2026 academic year due to UCT’s strict financial policies regarding unpaid fees. The dispute triggered a complex series of urgent applications, moving from the High Court back to the Regional Court, which ultimately found it lacked the statutory jurisdiction to issue declaratory relief, before returning to the High Court for final determination.
In his defence, the father relied heavily on the legal principle of ejusdem generis, wherein he argued that because the order listed specific school-related items, such as schoolbooks, uniforms, and aftercare, the general phrase “educational costs” should be interpreted narrowly to exclude higher education.
However, the court rejected this restrictive interpretation and pointed out that the order explicitly utilised the expansive phrase “shall include but is not limited to”. Relying on the authority from Natal Joint Municipal Pension Fund v Endumeni Municipality on document interpretation, Judge Mayosi stated that the ordinary grammatical meaning of “all” must encompass all four children born of the marriage, including the daughter already enrolled in tertiary studies at the time the order was made.
The court also highlighted the stark financial realities of the family; the mother has been unemployed for over 20 years and is legally barred from seeking employment due to visa restrictions. Forcing her to cover university fees from her cash maintenance component would inevitably cause an untenable shortfall in basic daily living provisions for herself and the children.
Ultimately, Judge Mayosi granted the declaratory order confirming the father’s continuous liability for tertiary education costs and ordered him to bear the legal costs of the application.
You can read the full D.J.K v T.M.F.K judgement here.
Written by Theo Tembo
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