A human tragedy in metro schools

IT is almost unbelievable that, towards the end of the first term, there are so many schools without stationery or textbooks in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro.

The Herald yesterday reported children had to beg, borrow or steal to be able to learn due to the lack of materials. It must be near impossible for these children to value education – far less to develop a love for reading, writing and arithmetic – if they are not even given the basic tools to learn.

More than half of township schools and close to half in the northern areas still do not have their full quota of books, pens and pencils.

As Northern Areas Education Forum secretary Richard Draai so eloquently put it yesterday, “How can we place focus on matrics when we can’t even deliver a textbook at the foundation phase?”

What gives an added dimension to this is the tragedy of 3 244 special needs pupils who are not even at any school, let alone an appropriate educational centre. This shocking figure does not take into account those children squeezed into bulging yet under-resourced classrooms in mainstream schools.

What chance is there for these children to receive the specialist services they need such as remedial, speech or occupational therapy, when they do not even have pencils and paper?

It is clear that provincial education spokesman Malibongwe Mtima either lied, or was lied to, when he said in January that school textbooks had all been delivered.

Frankly, we are tired of hearing the same sorry story, especially if it turns out not to be true.

Every year the Eastern Cape department of education promises this will change and every year The Herald and other media report on the shortfalls. Why should we believe its promises?

This issue shows a horrific disregard for the rights of our children to a decent education and the department should not only hang its head in shame, it should make heads roll.

The province gives a large chunk of its budget to education and yet we are not seeing the result where it is most needed.

It’s also a human tragedy because a lost primary school generation becomes a generation of high school drop-outs, just waiting to swell the ranks of unemployed.

Cry the beloved province.