Johannesburg – A Limpopo school has waited seven years for damaged roofs and classrooms to be repaired.
Now parents at Seale Secondary School in Botlokwa have given up all hope of the Limpopo Education Department ever fixing their school.
They have now decided to raise funds of their own and rebuild their school.
In 2010, the school was hit by a storm collapsing a classroom and damaging most of the roofing.
After waiting for the department to fix the school, to no avail, the community then decided to get donations and fix the wall and salvage some of the damaged corrugated iron and repair the roof.
Disaster struck again in 2013 when another storm hit, damaging three classrooms.
In 2014, yet another storm hit the school so hard, it collapsed a wall separating two classrooms.
Now the school is left with five damaged classrooms and a serious overcrowding problem.
School governing body chairperson Masoko Mabeba said: “We have been going to the circuit and provincial offices for years and they are not helping us."
“Every time we go there, they make promises but they are never kept.”
She said because the community waited for more than seven years for the department to fix their school, they had now lost hope and wanted to raise funds for the refurbishment themselves.
The Grade 8 and 9 classrooms are overcrowded with 69 and 60 pupils, respectively.
In a crammed Grade 8 classroom, three pupils have to sit at a desk that is meant to accommodate only two.
Some of the pupils have to use broken desks that don’t have the wooden tops.
They balance their books on their laps to write.
The roof is also leaking and some windows are broken.
Community member Seucha Kganakga said: “There will be no more dialogue with the department."
“Let’s get the school done and deal with politics later.”
Kganakga said when the schools reopened this year, they had decided to try to raise funds for themselves.
“Our community is very active. We will now have to raise funds so that we can fix the school ourselves."
“If the department wants to help, they can.”
Limpopo education spokesperson Dr Naledzani Rasila said the department was working hard to repair schools.
“Currently we have 120 storm damaged schools in the province. We have an infrastructure plan to build new ones and refurbish some."
“Unfortunately, we have limited resources and we will not get to all of them at the same time.”