More than 400 pupils at a junior secondary school in Joe Slovo near Milnerton have not been receiving formal schooling, and their education will not be recognised, the provincial education department has said.
The 12 educators and five supporting staff members at the school are not receiving salaries, the pupils have no stationery and desks, there is no electricity and the toilets are not functioning.
The department’s spokesperson, Paddy Attwell, said the site was leased temporarily from the City of Cape Town to accommodate pupils from Sinenjongo High School while completing a R47-million replacement school across the road.
Atwell said members of the community occupied the mobile classrooms on the site when the high school pupils moved to the new school.
Attwell told the Cape Times: “Children on the site are not receiving formal schooling, and their education there will not be recognised.”
The department has placed three additional mobile classrooms at Marconi Beam Primary and two at Tygerhof Primary, to accommodate the pupils, and has deployed additional teachers to these schools.
Senior officials have held extensive meetings with various organisations claiming to be representative of the community on the placement of pupils at Marconi Beam and Tygerhof, said Attwell.
“District officials have made every effort to engage parents. Unfortunately, they had to withdraw from the last meeting when parents became abusive. Our officials will continue engaging with parents in the best interests of their children. The department’s only interest is to ensure that the learners attend a registered school where they will receive formal schooling,” he said.
The educators and parents have vowed to fight for the registration of Khozi Primary School and report the department to the SA Human Rights Commission should it not register the school by the beginning of the third school term.
“The question is who has the right to education if our children are not being given the opportunity?” asked parent Nolizwi Masango.
“The teachers are working very hard I can see from my son’s books,” said Masango.
A staff member at the school, Phathiswa Dlokweni, said Marconi Beam Primary School was “too crowded” and had more than 50 pupils.
She said the pupils at Khozi Primary School had been learning there since January because they have been on waiting lists for years and not accepted at other schools.