New special needs school awaiting certificate to open

The hopes of 560 special needs pupils in Gauteng were dashed yesterday when they could not move into their new multi-million rand school building.

This after the City of Johannesburg delayed the issuing of an occupational certificate for the R3-million state-of-the-art school.

Nokuthula LSEN (Learners with Special Educational Needs) School in Lyndhurst, Joburg, was launched in October with much fanfare by Gauteng premier David Makhura and MEC for education Panyaza Lesufi.

The school is the first of its kind in the province that caters for pupils with various special needs.

Parent Bukeka Mjindi, 45, said they have been left frustrated by the delay as they thought they would have moved into the new school by now. “We were told that the children will only move when they get the occupational certificate, but we don’t know when. The new school has better facilities for our children.”

The school will cater for pupils from Alexandra, Tembisa, Ivory Park and Diepsloot.

When the Sowetan visited the facility, there were only workers at the premises. An official at the school said: “This was an agricultural land which was rezoned into school premises.

“We can’t operate without the occupational certificate, otherwise we will have another case of Life Esidimeni should anything happen to the pupils ...”

An official from the City of Johannesburg said the planning department needs approvals for them to issue the occupational certificate, and they were still working on that.