The School Governing Body (SGB) at Ramalawane High School at Phoshiri village in Ga-Mphahlele in Limpopo wants the Education Department to solve problems at the school before the reopening.
Learners at the school were relocated to Tauphuti High School in the nearby Majejane village because there were not enough teachers at Ramalwane. The learners have made a plea to education officials to provide them with scholar transport or use the school in their village when schools re-open.
The only high school at Phoshiri village in Ga-Mphahlele has not operated in over a year. The School Governing Body says Ramalawane High School was closed due to a shortage of teachers last year. The chairperson of the SGB Masese Madigoe says learners were relocated to Tauphuti High School at neighbouring Majejane village. Madigoe says the provincial Education Department didn’t make provisions for scholar transport.
“We have a challenge of not having scholar transport, our children have to walk for more than 15 kilometers through bushes, if the lockdown ends, how will the children get safely to school, the principal closed the school because there was no grade 12, this village is big and ninety learners are without scholar transport,” says Madigoe.
The learners say they walk for more than ten kilometres to their new school. The learners say they feel unsafe when they walk to school. They say they prefer returning to the school located in their village.
“We prefer attending here, we would like the school in our village to re-open. Where we currently attend is far, we walk for a long time and are exposed to dangers,” a learner says.
This learner at Ramalawane school also says problems at the school must be solved before they go back.
“Our school was shut down because there are no teachers, I don’t know anything about the re-opening of schools. I don’t think it is a good decision to go back to school, this virus is deadly, I don’t think we should go back to school,” says another learner.
Teachers’ union SADTU in Limpopo says it is not convinced that schools are ready to re-open, even in a phased manner. Provincial Secretary Sowell Tjebane says the majority of the schools are still faced with challenges such as poor sanitation, overcrowding and weak infrastructure.
“The issue of transport in terms of how it will be sanitised, the issue of the provision of the PPEs for both learners and educators at schools, those must be provided for but remember as Limpopo we are rural province which has got a number of challenges with some of them are quite historical. When we have got schools now as we speak that have got challenges in terms of the infrastructure we have got schools that have got challenges in terms of the provision of water and sanitation,” says Tjebane.
The provincial leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), Jacque Smalle has called on transparency from education officials regarding school re-opening plans.
“The department must explore subsidising these schools or providing the norms and standards payment earlier to allow these schools to procure the necessary material earlier. The Democratic Alliance believes that transparency with regards to the re-opening of schools in the province is important to ensure that the department’s accountability to concerned parents and teachers and learners, must be about, the safety of our teachers and learners must be ensured,” says Smalle.
In the meantime, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is expected to convene a meeting of the Council of Education Ministers next week Monday. The meeting will look at whether there is progress being made across provinces in relation to school opening. One of the pre-conditions of re-opening is ensuring that personal protective equipment is delivered on time.
Below is a graphic that shows plans to re-open schools:
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