Schools in PE still need services

Independent Newspapers

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga. File Photo: Sizwe Ndingane

Johannesburg - Port Elizabeth schools were facing numerous problems because Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and the Eastern Cape Education Department failed to protect children’s rights to basic education, the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) said on Tuesday.

“LRC has written to Motshekga, demanding an undertaking to make payments for school nutrition programmes and to deliver the workbooks still missing at three public schools in Port Elizabeth,” it said in a statement.

The LRC was acting on behalf of the school governing bodies of Triomf Primary School, Bethelsdorp Road Primary School and Booysen Park Primary School, and the Bethelsdorp governing bodies unit which represents the interests of approximately 35 schools in the Port Elizabeth area.

In a letter written to Motshekga on June 25 by LRC director in Grahamstown, Sarah Sephton, the schools urgently requested payments for school nutrition programmes and delivery of the outstanding workbooks.

Sephton said the non-delivery of workbooks constituted a breach of the children’s right to education and their right to equality as enshrined in the Constitution.

“The department of basic education bears responsibility for the production and dissemination of the workbooks and our clients request immediate action from your department to rectify the situation.”

She said the impact of not having workbooks was severe and very little or no learning was taking place by children with no workbooks.

“It is appalling that the second term has ended and many schools never received all its workbooks from the first delivery, which are supposed to be covering material from the first and second term,” she said. - Sapa