Schools consider suing province

Cape Town-140414-Beauvillon High School is in a terrible state of disrepair. (L-R) Stanley Stuurman of the Skills Centre, SGB chair Eric Walters and Principal David Lawn are trying to turn things around. Picture Jeffrey Abrahams. Reporter Xolani Koyana

Cape Town-140414-Beauvillon High School is in a terrible state of disrepair. (L-R) Stanley Stuurman of the Skills Centre, SGB chair Eric Walters and Principal David Lawn are trying to turn things around. Picture Jeffrey Abrahams. Reporter Xolani Koyana

Published Apr 16, 2014

Share

Xolani Koyana

THE Save Our Schools campaign is considering hauling the Western Cape Education Department back to court for breach of an order that overturned the closure of 17 schools.

Last year the Western Cape High Court ruled that the department should keep the 17 schools open until a further judgment and continue to support them.

But the campaign says that nearly a year after the court ruled that the schools should remain open, life has been difficult for some of the schools because the department is not releasing funds for building maintenance.

Magnus de Jongh of Save Our Schools said the organisation would meet lawyers tomorrow to explore litigation against the department.

“This could be breach of the court order. The court said that the Western Cape Education Department must continue to provide support to those schools but that is not happening,” De Jongh said.

He said pupils at Beauvallon Secondary School in Valhalla Park and Protea Primary in Bonteheuwel were being taught in classes with broken windows.

At Beauvallon classes have been without electricity for two years and girls have been forced to use the boys’ toilets due to a plumbing failure.

This has been blamed by Save Our Schools and the school’s governing body on years of vandalism and on “neglect” by the department.

Principal David Lawn said parents did not want to send their children to a school where ceilings had caved in. Lawn said he had sent emergency repair requests since 2011 without a response. This left him with the impression that the department did not want to help, he said.

“But (on Monday) before you came here I received a call from the department. The lady said I should send another repair request and I did,” Lawn said.

He said the school initially thought the department was not responding to its requests because of a pending appeal before the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Chairman of the school’s governing body Eric Walter said only 10 of 30 of the classrooms were usable. He said this was a result of vandalism and years of neglect by the department. Residents take turns at night to guard the school from vandals.

“The department has given up on it but we won’t. This community is ready to fight for this school,” Walter said.

Residents had started a skills programme, teaching welding, carpentry and brick- laying to unemployed youth.

Education MEC Donald Grant’s spokeswoman, Bronagh Casey, denied the department was cutting funding to the schools.

She said, in fact, the schools were receiving the funding they “qualify (for) as with any other public ordinary school”.

“It is regrettable that an organisation that claims to have the interests of schooling at heart should be so careless with the accuracy of the information they provide,” Casey said.

She said the schools were funded based on national norms. Beauvallon, which was in quintile four, received R380 for each of its 330 pupils. In addition the school had received top-up funds of R158 per pupil, giving an additional R 53 088 to the school’s funding for the 2014/15 financial year, Casey said.

She said the school had emergency repairs in 2011 and 2012 but the department had received no further requests from the school since then.

Casey said the department was concerned about the issue of toilets and the department was in contact with the school.

[email protected]

Related Topics: