Parents, pupils want proper school
Over 1,000 kids share five loos which don’t flush
A West Rand community has vowed to keep a top-performing school closed until they get a proper building. Yesterday, angry parents and pupils from the Rietvallei Extension 1 secondary school near Krugersdorp blocked the streets in the area with burning tyres and rocks amid demands for the Gauteng department of education to build them a new school. The school has produced excellent grade 12 results for the past four years. These include a matric pass rate of 100% in 2015 and 2016, while it obtained 95% last year.
But the school’s classrooms are falling apart and its five toilets are broken, do not flush and are filthy.
The school has been using temporary prefab classrooms since 2012 with the promise of new facilities. Yesterday, school governing body chairperson Lerotholi Lerotholi said more than 1,000 pupils were forced to share five filthy toilets which do not flush.
When Sowetan visited the school yesterday, some mobile toilet cubicles were locked because they are not working, while one of grade 8 classrooms had a gaping hole in the floor. Windows are broken and most of the classrooms have no doors. Some toilets don’t have walls to separate cubicles and there are no taps. “They have been promising to build us a school for years but nothing is happening. We are going to close this school until they give us a date for construction. We are sick and tired of false promises,” Lerotholi said.
He said classrooms, including one with a digital smart board, don’t have doors. Lerotholi said the department has said there was an R81m budget available to build the school but that a further R20m was needed. Sebabatso Chopiso, 16, who is in grade 10, said they were tired of learning under such dire conditions. “We want our school to be fixed but it seems as if the department does not care about us,” she said.
Chopiso said the ceilings also leak. “When it rains water comes into the classroom. In
winter we get cold because there are no doors and no electricity.” She said using the toilets was a nightmare.
Another pupil, Gnina Vanyaza, said their school was an “unhealthy dump”. He said pupils fall sick because of the conditions at the school. Some of the streets in the area were blocked with large rocks yesterday, while a big placard with the words, “Panyaza we want a tar and mortar school”, was on display. Departmental spokesperson Steve Mabona said the department has noted all schools with infrastructural defects and has sent out its internal structural engineers to conduct assessments of structures and make recommendations.
“This report will ensure that schools are rehabilitated accordingly and in addition, MEC Panyaza Lesufi will meet with all affected stakeholders to discuss details of this project on Thursday [tomorrow].”