School rooms set alight by mob
THE KZN Department of Education has condemned the setting alight of two classrooms at a Reservoir Hills school and said it would now have to find funds for renovations it did not budget for.
MEC Mthandeni Dlungwana recently tabled the department’s budget, including a portion for infrastructure.
Spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi said: “We have already budgeted for new schools and renovations and Hillview was not part of our plans. Now – on an already strained budget – we must find funds to repair that school.”
Mahlambi urged communities to think about the future of their children and about progress when protesting, saying the destruction of property reverses services delivery.
“It’s disappointing when people are protesting for something, then they destroy something else.”
On the chalkboard of one classroom which was burnt are the words, “Sorry sir”.
“We believe it was intentional, someone knew whose class this was and set it alight on purpose,” said a teacher who was not authorised to speak to the media.
When The Mercury visited the Durban school yesterday, classes had resumed.
On Monday, 690 Grades R to 7 pupils were sent home in fear of their safety as residents, believed to be from the nearby Banana City informal settlement, took to the streets demanding a former ANC councillor return after the ward was won by the DA last year.
Durban Fire divisional commander Alfred Newman said its tenders were dispatched just after 6am.
Fortunately, Metro police who arrived on the scene, had already extinguished the fire using hosepipes.
Teachers and pupils arrived to the gutted classrooms, with desks, chairs and stationery badly damaged.
“Those 48 Grade 5 pupils are now having to rewrite all their second-term work,” said the teacher. The pupils have been moved to another room.
Burnt tyres and rubble swept to the side of the road outside the school bore testimony to the protest.
Inside the school, with the classrooms having since been cleaned, burnt furniture in a corner of the corridor awaited removal.
“They broke the padlock and the chain on the gate and walked all the way across the field, past one of the school buildings, and came to this classroom for some reason.
“If they had succeeded in burning down these two, the whole block would have gone up in flames because the ceiling would have caught alight,” said the teacher.
The teacher said they and the pupils were traumatised as the community had always protected the school.
“It’s their children who come to this school; we are shocked that someone would target it,” said the teacher.