Betty Moleya
Pretoria - No learning will take place at Sekampaneng Primary School in Hammanskraal until temporary mobile classrooms have been provided.
A side of a classroom collapsed last Saturday, adding to a long list of issues concerning safety at the school due to dilapidated infrastructure.
Parents gathered at the school yesterday and made their way to the Education Department’s district office to seek answers and solutions for the infrastructure problems at the school.
They are concerned about the safety of their children, and will not allow their children to go back to the school yet.
Motlogelwa Matjila, a member of the school governing body, said the unsafe infrastructure and water coming from below the ground on to surfaces, was not a new development, and action was long overdue.
Learning has been suspended at Skampaneng Primary School in Hammanskraal following the collapse of a side of a class at the school and water coming up from underneath the ground. #School @DBE_SA @EducationGP1 #Collapse #SchoolCollapse #Hammanskraal pic.twitter.com/w7qb2rBclu
— Pretoria News (@pretorianews) January 27, 2022
“We have been reporting this issue for years, but there has been no way forward. This has been going on for eight to nine years.”
Matjila said the parents’ plea was for the school to be fixed and be a safe place for their children to learn.
He said the school did not have a building plan, and engineers could attest to that.
The primary school was built in the 1960s by the community, and parents say this might have had an effect on the quality of the structures.
“We want temporary mobile classes and they should also let us know when they will be able to fix the school.
“This is not a place for learning, and not safe at all.
“Sending our children to this place is a death wish, it is very risky,” one parent said.
Despite the unsafe infrastructure, the school was overcrowded and Matjila said this was due to the outstanding results it achieved.
“The school is performing well, the problem is the infrastructure.”
The classrooms and present mobile classrooms are surrounded by water, at the bottom of which a green layer has formed.
The other main concern of the parents is the health and well-being of the learners.
Khume Ramulifho, DA MPL and provincial spokesperson on Education, said based on observations and the overcrowding at the school, this was an urgent matter that needed to be attended to.
“I’m going to engage with MEC Panyaza Lesufi to intervene and provide mobile classes in the meantime because building a school takes time.
“There are 10 classes that are not being utilised at the school, and there are an average of 65 learners per class."
Ramulifho said engineers needed to asses the school and determine what type of structures could be built at the site.
The school has over 2 000 learners and the classes are overcrowded; it a place of learning for Sekampaneng children and those from neighbouring villages.
Pupils are currently not attending school.
The Gauteng Department of Education had yet to comment by late yesterday.
Pretoria News