Inaccurate article

WE REFER to your report yesterday entitled “‘Illegal school’ evacuated, torn down”.

The report states as fact that the eviction of the illegal school “has left hundreds of pupils without a school”.

We made it clear to your reporter that this claim is incorrect.

Our district officials arranged to accommodate the pupils at four schools in the area.

The department placed additional mobile classrooms and deployed extra teachers at two of these schools to accommodate the pupils, at Marconi Beam and Tygerhof primary schools.

Officials also arranged to place pupils in Grades 5 and 6 at Silverleaf Primary, and Grade 7s at Dunoon Primary.

Officials gave parents clear guidelines on where to enrol their children. In addition, we did not tell your reporter, as claimed, that the mobile classrooms had been sent to schools that need urgent accommodation on the West Coast.

The department originally planned to use the mobile classrooms for this purpose, but could not do so because the illegal school had occupied the classrooms concerned. Paddy Attwell Director of Communication, Western Cape Education Department Cape Times reporter Sandiso Phaliso responds:

I STAND by my story that hundreds of pupils have been left without schooling since mobile classrooms occupied by Khozi Primary School pupils were moved/taken away.

Parents are refusing to send their children to the schools Attwell mentions. In his e-mail he acknowledges this. Attwell further states that he did not not tell me the mobile classrooms had been sent to schools that need “urgent accommodation” on the West Coast.

This is what Attwell wrote to me: “The WCED needed the mobile classrooms to provide urgent accommodation at schools on the West Coast.”