The reopening of the Roodepoort Primary School next week could be marred by yet another controversy, this time over the advice of the mediation team, which has ordered additional members of the community be co-opted into the school’s governing body to make it representative.
On Friday the mediation team working with the troubled school, led by Dr Molefe Tsele, presented its report to Gauteng Premier David Makhura.
They urged that the school be reopened and that security be beefed up by installing CCTV cameras. They also requested counselling for pupils and teachers.
Teaching at the school, which has about 1 200 pupils, has been disrupted for months.
Roodepoort Primary has been mired in allegations of corruption and racism, resulting in parents calling for teaching to be halted.
The mediation team was brought in to find a solution after the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) twice failed to do so.
At the heart of the dispute is the alleged irregular appointment of the principal and her deputy. The community wants them out.
Tsele said the appointment of the principal, which he admitted was the “trigger point”, was no longer a “core issue”.
“The trigger event is a non- issue in so far as the purpose of this report is concerned and going forward,” he said.
“However, it is recommended that such processes (the appointment of senior management staff) should be looked at.
“The manner in which we went around was to refuse to take the easy option to this problem,” said Tsele.
But a sore point that remains for Matakanye Matakanye, secretary of the National Association of School Governing Bodies, was the recommendation to co-opt further members into the school governing board soon after “it was democratically elected”.
This, he said, would set a bad precedent for other communities with similar gripes about how schools are run as they could seek to subvert a democratic process.
“This has the potential to become a tinder box. The co-option is illegal and out of order. Those co-opted people won’t have voting power in terms of the law. There is no guidance in the law to do this kind of thing,” he said.
Other recommendations of the mediation team included that a process of healing and reconciliation be undertaken in the affected communities, that a team of eminent leaders be identified to support this and that the education department supports the school management team and staff to improve interpersonal relations.
The mediation team also asked that the socio-economic issues - such as unemployment - be addressed in Davidsonville, Matholeville and other affected communities.
Makhura promised the community that his government would visit their area to assess all the socio-economic issues but insisted that the reopening of the school on Tuesday was the priority.
“It’s in the interests of both our learners and the community that there is normalcy at the school,” he said.
“The issues that are unrelated to this - the socio-economic issue and the feeling of marginalisation in the community will be addressed. I am glad that the report has helped us identify non-education-related issues.”
Saturday Star