Faction fights stop pupils from writing exam

File picture: Timothy Bernard

File picture: Timothy Bernard

Published Oct 27, 2016

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Durban - Teacher unions have called on the KwaZulu-Natal government to intervene in Msinga where faction fights have prevented terrified boys at four schools from writing their matric exams.

Bhambatha, Mbonje, Macingwane and KwaZenzele high schools were being monitored closely by the Department of Education, which was expected to hold a stakeholder meeting on Thursday to find solutions.

The department said it would confirm the total number of pupils affected at the meeting, to be led by Education MEC, Mthandeni Dlungwane.

But teacher union Natu’s deputy president, Allen Thompson, said the department’s intervention was “too late”, because those who did not write would not pass matric.

SA Democratic Teachers Union KZN secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, said they called on parents and the community not to involve pupils in their deadly factional fights, said to have claimed many lives.

“We are disturbed that boys in particular are not able to write their exams, so we are calling on the Department of Community Safety to intervene because it cannot be that pupils have been in class since the beginning of the year and now they cannot write," Caluza said.

“We call on the parents in the community to think about the future of the learners… The Department of Community Safety must intervene.

“Our advice is that these pupils must be taken to write exams at the police station where their safety is guaranteed. They are the future of the country. It is not correct that they cannot be allowed a chance to test their knowledge,” she said.

Caluza said pupils were staying away because they feared being seen and attacked at school.

A principal of one of the four schools was asked by the Daily News yesterday to confirm that matric candidates had failed to turn up for the English exam on Wednesday.

He would only say: “There are kids that are not at school, that is all I am prepared to say.”

He cited the department’s policy that forbade him from speaking to the media.

Dlungwane on Wednesday said they would “jealously guard” against the disruption of the matric exams.

“Any disruption of examination will adversely affect learners who are on the verge of achieving a qualification that will open opportunities for them‚” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the MEC made unannounced visits to five schools in Phoenix and KwaMashu to monitor if schools were equipped and ready for the start of the examinations.

To ensure the exam question papers were not leaked, the department had installed 100 cameras at the printers.

It had also provided security for the transporting of papers from the printers to central points where principals would collect them in the mornings.

“We are ready as the department, in terms of the learners and the system. From the printing of papers, we have more than 100 cameras and two people monitoring the printing room for 24 hours, so no one person can be alone in there at any given time.

“If there is any misconduct, it cannot be isolated, there are a few people who are allowed in and out of the printing centre,” he said on Wednesday.

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