by Sihle Mlambo
Durban - As the rains poured down on Monday, pupils at a KwaDukuza school, riddled with broken walls and windows, endured the wet and cold – or chose to stay at home instead.
Pupils are being taught in prefabricated classrooms while work on new buildings has halted at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Secondary School.
A dispute between the Independent Development Trust (IDT) and the contractor earlier this year stopped the work.
The trust manages social development projects on behalf of the government, reporting to the Department of Public Works.
The Department of Education has since intervened and work was expected to resume and be completed in October.
Teachers took the Daily News around the rain-lashed school on Monday afternoon, pointing out that classrooms had been damaged since last year.
They said pupil turnout had been poor yesterday, with one teacher recording just two pupils in his classroom.
The department was not able to confirm the attendance at the school, but said turnout across the province had been poor on Monday because of the heavy rains.
However in one of the classrooms at the school, apparently a maths classroom, lessons evidently took place as indicated by the date and freshly chalked equations on the blackboard – despite classroom windows being broken or smashed.
A meeting planned for yesterday of Education MEC Mthandeni Dlungwane, parents, the school governing body and other education stakeholders, was postponed because of poor turnout.
Muzi Mahlambi, spokesman for the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education, said an agreement was reached between the IDT and the contractor that would see work resume this week.
He said the prefab classrooms, in a poor state as evidenced by Dlungwane last week, were vandalised by frustrated pupils who wanted to move into new buildings.
“We have held a meeting with the IDT and the contractor and the work is to be completed in October. In the meantime, the Grade 10 and 11 classes, who are the most affected, will be phased into the newly built block by mid-August,” he said.
Mahlambi said the contractors had been set an August 8 deadline to allow for occupation for the affected grades 10 and 11 pupils.
Dr Ngogi Mahaye, head of the provincial intervention team at the Department of Education, who visited Inkosi Albert Luthuli Secondary on Monday, said the MEC had been appalled during his last visit to find that almost 700 pupils were late for school.
“There is a lack of assessment policy – this is supposed to be discussed with the parents. There is no involvement of the parents and stakeholders,” he said.