PUPILS sit three to a desk at Cottonlands Primary School outside Verulam and the pit toilets are so disgusting they would rather wait to go home to relieve themselves. The infrastructure is so lacking that a head of department uses an old toilet as an office.
But while the school’s management, dedicated teachers and a sympathetic schools official are doing the best they can under trying circumstances, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education has criticised their efforts to improve conditions, going so far as to accuse the principal of allowing them to get out hand in the first place.
Department spokesman Muzi Mahlambi said Selvan Chetty, the acting chief education specialist in the Mafukuzela-Gandhi schools circuit in Phoenix, and principal Sdudla Mkhabela had been complicit in the overcrowding at the school.
He said they had admitted more pupils than the school could accommodate.
“We can’t have an inspector allow a school to over-admit. As a department we can’t have an official such as Chetty let the situation deteriorate like that and then (they) detach themselves and become a member the community,” said Mahlambi.
The harsh comments have come as a shock to Chetty and the school’s management, who said they were merely following department policy in not turning away pupils.
“What do I say to pupils that want education? What happens to those pupils?” asked an incredulous Chetty.
The 51-year-old, who is in charge of about 230 schools in the circuit, was so moved by the school’s plight that he has undertaken to run the gruelling 42.1km Great Wall of China Marathon on Saturday (May 16) to raise funds.
According to Chetty, about 60 percent of the children at Cottonlands Primary are orphans, mainly from local informal settlements.
Chetty, who left for China on May 12, said Cottonlands was “one of the most needy schools that we have in our circuit”.
A class meant to accommodate 25 pupils has anything between 60 and 80 pupils.
“I have no good reason to go on this (marathon) project other than there is a dire need to assist the school,” he said. He last ran a marathon – the Comrades – about 20 years ago.
The marathon fundraising is being facilitated by the Billy Nair Education Desk, an organisation of teachers under the Mafukuzela-Gandhi Cluster that raises funds for schools in need.
Its chairman, Lajeeth Maharaj, said they had already raised R25 000 but were aiming for R250 000, to build proper classrooms for the pupils.
Other schools represented on the Billy Nair Education Desk are also contributing to the Cottonlands fund-raising campaign.
“It’s near impossible to be teaching learners in excess of 50 in a class. That’s totally unacceptable,” said Maharaj.
Opened in 1945 for the Indian community, the school was shut down decades later and used as a small goat farm. It reopened as a school in 1998 and since then 15 classrooms have been added. The school has about 1 000 pupils and 22 teachers.
While the department has sought to deflect blame for the overcrowding, saying principals were mandated to take pupils based on the availability of space, it has been accused of being out of touch with the reality on the ground.
A source said pupils could not be sent to other schools because the nearest primary school was about 7km away – and there was no transport to take them there.
“Children can’t be expected to walk that distance.”
Mkhabela, the principal, defended her decision to take more students than the school could accommodate.
She said they could not turn away pupils as the department’s own policy prohibited them from denying pupils an education. According to Mkhabela the situation has left teachers questioning the department’s commitment to the school.
“Teachers are feeling abandoned by the department.”
There are also concerns that a good initiative to build race relations is being lost on the department.
As the department takes aim at Chetty and the school management, the pupils continue to suffer.
Nosipho Nyawo, 11, said the toilets were unhygienic and therefore dangerous.
Food was cooked near a sewerage pipe, she said. “I don’t know whether I eat germs from that drainage.”
Nosipho shares a desk meant for one with two other Grade 6 pupils. She struggles with maths and said teachers were unable to provide individual attention.