Cape Town - While their classmates sit at desks, some pupils at a Strand school have to take their notes while balancing their books on their laps.
Teachers at Nomzamo Primary say the pupils have been without desks since January and claim that while they had reported it to the school’s leadership, the problem has still not been resolved.
But the Western Cape Education Department said nothing had been reported to its district officials and they were not aware some of the pupils at the school didn’t have desks.
In a recent e-mail to the Cape Argus, the teachers said the school had borrowed a few desks.
But Grade 3 teacher Noluthando Magodla said the borrowed desks and chairs were too big for the pupils in her class and couldn’t be used.
She said that except for her own class, she knew of one other class where some of the pupils also didn’t have desks.
“The children use their laps to write on.”
According to the teachers, they have written to Education MEC Debbie Schäfer to highlight their concerns about the desks and other issues at the school, including unhappiness about the acting principal.
Schäfer’s spokeswoman, Jessica Shelver, said the district director would investigate the matter today.
She said the provincial education ministry was not aware of any correspondence to Schäfer’s office from the school’s teachers.
In January, the school was also in the news after five classrooms were burnt. The fire, which was believed to have been set deliberately, happened just days after the school was hit by thieves.
The thieves opened manholes on the school premises and ripped out underground copper cables. The school and the high school next door were left without power.
The damage was estimated at about R100 000.
In 2012, the Cape Argus reported that Grade 1 pupils at another primary school in Strand, ACJ Phakade, had to lie flat on their stomachs on the classroom floor or balance their books on their knees because they had no furniture.
Donald Grant, who was the Education MEC at the time, visited the school and apologised to the pupils and also said an inquiry would be launched. Desks and chairs were delivered days later.
Cape Argus