Cape Town - Dunoon residents, who claim hundreds of children in the area have not been placed in schools, occupied the site of a vacated school on Monday, demanding that the children be taught there.
Residents, many of them parents, said they had a list of more than 300 unplaced children and claim the two local primary schools had turned them away because they are full.
The Western Cape Education Department has, however, refuted the claims.
The residents are demanding that empty mobile classrooms, that were used by Sophakama Primary until the school moved to permanent structures several months ago, be put to use as a new primary school for their children to attend.
About 80 residents and children marched through the area and protested outside the site from early Monday morning.
Later in the day the lock of the main gate was cut and the group made their way on to the site.
Nokubonga Tukani said her children, aged 7 and 12, had not been placed and the education department had no solution for her or other parents. “I’m worried about what will happen to them. They will fall behind if they don’t go to school. Nobody is using these mobile classrooms so why can’t it be turned into a third primary school?”
Resident Nompumelelo Mzilikazi said parents had also been informed by schools that there were no places for their children for next year.
The group vowed to continue their occupation until their demands are met.
Departmental spokesman Paddy Attwell said a group of parents had informed the department that they planned to occupy the mobile classrooms on a field in Dunoon.
“The department leased the site temporarily from the City of Cape Town to accommodate pupils while completing a replacement school next door.”
Attwell said officials had checked a list provided by the group. “It was found that it was largely an outdated waiting list for Sophakama Primary, compiled in 2013. Spot checks of names found that they were already registered at the school.”
He said the district was aware of only six pupils looking for places in the area in the past two weeks. The group disputed this, and said they had provided the department with an updated list.
A meeting with parents has been scheduled for July 22.
Last month the Mitchells Plain Education Forum said 59 children in that area had not yet been placed in schools for the 2015 academic year.
At the time Jessica Shelver, spokeswoman for Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, said the department had requested the “alleged list time and time again and until such time as we receive the list and we can verify the alleged pupils’ names, we have no further comment”.
In January, the Cape Argus reported that hundreds of children in Mfuleni were attending school in a tent with parents claiming schools in the area were full.
A registration drive was held in the area and 433 children of school-going age were registered by the department.
Most of the children now attend Parliament Street Primary, which operates from 1pm to 7pm on the premises of Bardale Primary.
Cape Argus