Legal support for school over funding
LRC throws down the gauntlet to department
THE Legal Resource Centre (LRC) is taking on the Eastern Cape Department of Education over the amalgamation of three township schools that has left them under-funded and lacking in teachers and textbooks.
Phakamisa High School in Zwide, which merged with Lwazilwethu and Thembalabantu high schools, is now expected to cater for almost double the pupils with no extra funding.
In 2013, the department informed Lwazilwethu and Thembalabantu that the number of pupils at the schools was too low to justify it spending money on improvements and that they would merge with Phakamisa.
Prior to the merger, Phakamisa had 508 pupils, Thembalabantu 146 and Lwazilwethu 211 pupils.
Since the merger, the budgets for Lwazilwethu and Thembalabantu have not been paid over to Phakamisa.
In October, the LRC stepped in after the school’s governing body appealed for assistance after exhausting all avenues with the department.
On October 21, the LRC sent a letter to Education MEC Mandla Makupula and acting superintendent-general Themba Kojana querying why the budgets for Thembalabantu and Lwazilwethu had not been transferred to Phakamisa.
LRC candidate attorney Cecile van Schalkwyk said they had sent a second letter on February 2 indicating that they intended to proceed with court action as the department had failed to respond to the first letter with effective solutions.
Phakamisa school governing board (SGB) member Xoliswa Captain, 60, said the school had infrastructure problems, a shortage of teachers, little to no textbooks and no funding for their national school nutrition programme.
Making matters worse, Captain said, was the fact that 99 pupils were excluded from the budget as they had no identity documents.
“In most instances the children are without IDs as a result of circumstances entirely beyond their caregivers’ control,” Captain said.
“They are undoubtedly the victims of poverty and neglect and the department is compounding this problem by preventing these learners from accessing education.”
SGB treasurer Lungiswa Nawule said the situation at Phakamisa was critical.
Nawule said Phakamisa’s 2016-17 nutrition programme budget was apportioned as if the schools had not merged.
The department provided nutrition funding meant to feed 508 Phakmisa pupils, while there were now 816 children.
Nawule said that earlier this month the company from which the school leased photocopying machines came to collect them due to non-payment.
This effectively meant the end of the academic programme as the school was dependent on the machines to ensure pupils were provided with learning material.
“Phakamisa has used most of its budget meant for maintenance to fund the shortfall of the NSNP [nutrition] budget. This means the school is unable to pay for many of the basic necessities needed to run a school,” Nawule said.
Provincial education spokesman Malibongwe Mtima said the department was aware of the LRC’s interaction with the department and confirmed receiving the letter addressed to the MEC.
He said the department could only account for about 400 pupils at the school.
“We have asked the school to resubmit their numbers to the district office and all the issues mentioned will be resolved,” Mtima said.
“We also urge principals to play their part in assisting learners to receive their identification numbers. It costs the department a lot of money to provide for learners without IDs.”
Mtima said he could not speak about the pending court case as it was sub judice.