Angry Healdtown pupils block road
Protest over shortage of teachers at Madiba school
PUPILS at the historic Healdtown Comprehensive High School in Fort Beaufort yesterday blockaded the road and burnt tyres in front of the education district office in protest over the shortage of teachers.
The pupils at the school – once attended by late anti-apartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe and Raymond Mhlaba – say as a result of the shortage, crucial subjects have not been taught since the beginning of the year and reports for the first term will not be issued.
Grade 12 pupil, Mihlali Mbathani who is a learner representative council (LRC) member said subjects without teachers are mathematics, English, history, tourism and isiXhosa.
Mihlali said their concern was that matriculants would not be able to apply to tertiary institutions with outstanding subjects on their reports.
“We raised our concerns with the teachers and the acting principal and when nothing was done to address this, we decided to take it to the district,” she said.
Accompanied by community members the pupils marched to the district office.
“We decided to burn tyres to show the department of education that we mean serious business and we were fed up,” said Mihlali.
The pupils stopped burning tyres and removed the stones when police arrived a few hours later.
A teacher at the school, who did not want to be named as she was not authorised to speak to the media, said the situation at the school was discouraging.
“We are supposed to submit schedules for the first term to show what we have done so far during this term but we cannot do that because not much schoolwork has been done.
“The situation at the school is very discouraging. Some of the pupils decide to go home during the periods that have no subject teachers,” said the teacher.
Luvo Mbathani, who serves as a member on a district task team that looks into the placement of teachers, said the shortage was due to teachers’ posts that were frozen and the nonreplacement of a teacher who died last year.
Mbathani said the school recently received a letter from the school management team (SMT) warning them to improve their matric pass rate.
“How do they expect the school to improve its pass rate when there are no teachers to teach?” asked Mbathani.
The school went from getting a 71% pass rate in 2015, to 29% in 2015 and 23% last year. “This is a Mandela school but the quality of education is dismal,” said Mbathani.
Meanwhile the pupils have vowed to go back to the district office and protest until these posts are filled. —