Francesca Villette
AN OVERBERG school has won an appeal to the provincial education department for the transportation of an additional 54 pupils after it forked out about R450 a day for nearly a year to drop and collect pupils from surrounding farms.
Emil Weder Secondary School in Genadendal lodged the appeal last week after the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) rejected an application by the school to have the school’s transport needs further subsidised.
WCED spokeswoman Jessica Shelver said the school’s initial application for the transportation of more pupils was not granted because the school had vacant rooms in its hostel where pupils could stay.
According to the department’s transport policy, it did not provide transport if hostel accommodation was available, Shelver said.
But it later surfaced that many of the rooms in the hostels were not in a liveable condition – and too expensive for parents to afford.
Shelver said the department was investing R2.5 million in upgrades for the hostel, and that in the interim the additional transportation had been granted.
The upgrades to the hostels are expected to be completed by March.
School Governing Body (SGB) chairman Ronald Martin said the school had incurred the additional expense – money it did not have – to transport 136 pupils, which is 54 more than it was subsidised for.
Many of the pupils lived in surrounding farms in Greyton and Bosmanskloof.
The majority of the pupils affected were in Grade 8, Martin said.
Emil Weder Secondary School hostel can accommodate 200 pupils – 100 boys and girls each respectively – but currently there are only 62 pupils in residence.
Martin said it cost parents R12 720 a year for their children to stay in the run-down hostel.
He doubted whether parents, many of whom were seasonal farm workers, would be able to afford the cost of having their children live in the hostels.
Martin said 90 percent of the parents did not pay the R300-a-year school fees.
“The parents earn a basic farmworker salary and simply can’t afford to have their children stay in the hostels,” he said.
“They are struggling to pay the R300, I can’t imagine how they would be able to pay for the hostel fees. Currently, the hostels are also not up to scratch.”
“Some of the lights are broken and many of the windows need to be replaced. We are happy now, though, that at least the transportation for the pupils was approved.
“Some live up to 25km away and have no alternative transport to get here.”
Shelver said: “The issue of the hostel fees will be addressed in a review of the fee structure. “The hostel is due to increase in size which will affect the fee structure – thus reducing costs.”