MEC’s promises ring hollow in EC’s ‘abandoned’ schools

MORE than 2 000 schools in the Eastern Cape only had two or three teachers, the MEC for education Mandla Makupula admitted this week.

Speaking at the education sector lekgotla in Johannesburg, Makupula said 219 schools in the province were led by just a single teacher, making the learning environment difficult.

“We cannot hope to have quality education when there are schools run by a single teacher.

“In fact by the end of 2016 we had 219 one-teacher schools and that’s a crisis and you expect that children must get quality education from that situation,” said Makupula.

The Dispatch last year visited a primary school that had only two teachers and recently the paper visited two schools in Mdantsane which were earmarked to be closed.

Pilani Primary School in NU7 was thought to have two teachers but last week, when the Dispatch team visited the school, children were playing outside and there were no teachers present.

It transpired that the teachers were instructed not to report for duty as the school was supposed to have been shut down due to low pupil numbers.

Parents at Khanyile Primary in Mooiplaas claimed that their children had been abandoned by the state.

Today, more than 70 children aged between seven and 13 have opted to go to a school almost 10km from their homes – Soto Primary School in Mooiplaas – while others have relocated to relatives nearer to “functioning” schools.

Khanyile Primary SGB chairwoman Nosithile Gobe yesterday said the department of education had never prioritised their core business, which was making sure that classrooms were open and staffed with a teacher.

“For the better part of last year our children did not have teachers.

“We only had progress reports for the final term.

“In all the other terms there was no progress reports because there were no teachers. We are unable to view those results as authentic,” said Gobe.

She said some parents felt that the distance between their homes and Soto would be “too much” and instead elected to take their children to relatives who lived closer to other schools.

“Our children are very young to wake so early and travel such a distance on a gravel road every day.

“This is almost like the time we were growing up – when people had to relocate to access education,” said Gobe.

Makupula’s promise comes after President Jacob Zuma called for action against those who failed to deliver and continuously recorded a zero pass rate at matric.

The pass rate of the Eastern Cape, which continues to be the worst in South Africa, was 3.2 percentage points lower than that of Limpopo, which came in second last.

The MEC cautioned against quick-fix solutions and urged teachers and parents to allow the cleanup of the system to conclude.

“We are working hard to close down those schools that are nonfunctional and we call upon communities to work with us as that will benefit their children.

“We are closing some schools and [will] integrate some in order to fix the system,” Makapula said. —