Troubled school is closed down until next term

EDUCATION MEC Donald Grant has taken the drastic step of closing Umyezo Wama Apile Combined, the Grabouw school hit by a stayaway and protests over his alleged broken promises to ease gross overcrowding.

It will be closed for seven schooldays until the end of term and reopen on April 10, at the start of the second term.

Teachers and management will still go to the school.

Violent protests about overcrowding and other issues have rocked the Overberg town since Monday last week.

Grant said the provincial education department “has not taken this step lightly and remains committed to its policy of protecting teaching and learning time.

“However, the disruption and intimidation of teachers and learners have made it impossible for normal teaching and learning to take place. The acts of violence – including the burning of two classrooms and other damage to property – also justify this unusual step.”

He said there were suggestions that the disruption and the intimidation of teachers and pupils had been influenced by upcoming by-elections and would continue for the next week or so.

“It is imperative that we do what is necessary to ensure the safety of our learners. The decision to close the school until the end of term has been taken to protect our learners.”

John Michaels, the chairman of the Grabouw Elgin Civic Organisation, repeatedly told the media that the protests would continue until Grant came to the school himself to accept a memorandum of demands.

Grant said he had not been directly invited to a meeting with the organisation.

Last Monday, thousands of Grabouw residents, pupils and their parents marched through the streets of the town.

Grant rejected claims that classes were overcrowded: “The teacher/pupil ratio at the school is 36:1, which is the norm in public ordinary schools across the province and the country.”

Principal Gladys Badela did not answer her cellphone yesterday.

Grant said the department would do everything it could to ensure additional temporary classrooms were ready by the start of the new term.

He added that efforts would be made to obtain a site for a permanent school.

Michaels, however, said that closing the school was a case of “the MEC running away from the problem”.