Don’t bash Uviwe, applaud
CHEAP politicking by the Economic Freedom Fighters raised its ugly head twice recently – first in the rampaging and vandalising of H&M stores despite an apology from the company for its recent unacceptable and insensitive advertising of a child’s hoodie, and now outside Uviwe High School in Scenery Park, East London, because the school is asking parents to pay R320 per year towards the salaries of two extra staff members appointed by the school governing board “EFF takes firm stance on no-fees school charging parents for salary of a teacher ” (DD, January 19).
I applaud the headmaster and school governing body of Uviwe who have taken the initiative to employ a mathematics teacher and a caretaker for their school because the education department has failed to do so.
Would any EFF members be prepared to work without pay? Would they want their children to attend a school that is unable to offer mathematics as a subject? Would they want their children to have to attend a school that is unkempt and dirty?
Every ex-model C school is forced to charge parents high amounts in monthly school fees because, without exception, the education department is constantly reducing the numbers of teachers/admin staff on the payrolls of these schools.
Parents are compelled to pay for extra teachers/admin staff at these schools if they want to maintain a decent standard of education and necessary subject choices for tertiary education.
Incredibly, the same government officials who now want to investigate Uviwe High School send their children to schools in the city suburbs so that their own children can have the benefit of mathematics as a subject and have lower teacherlearner ratios in classes so that optimal teaching and learning can take place.
It is not Uviwe High School that is at fault, but the department that should be investigated because they are responsible for the situation at Uviwe having absconded from their duty of providing sufficient teachers and admin staff at schools. — Name supplied, East London