The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education has raised concerns over the management of special schools in Mpumalanga. The committee believes that the Mpumalanga Education Department has not done enough to ensure that these schools function well.
This was after the committee visited several special schools, including Tsakane Special school in Bushbuckridge. The committee has urged the department to up its game when it comes to special schools.
The Committee has emphasised the importance of appointing qualified educators for special need schools. The Committee has discouraged the appointment of ordinary teachers to teach learners with disabilities.
Committee chairperson, Bongiwe Mbingo-Gigaba says such schools cater for different disabilities so they need to be resourced with capable teachers with relevant skills.
“The staffing of those schools need in our view the resources and you have a clinical therapist, you got only one physiotherapist that must deal with every child that is there, you got 208 learners. We know that is very rare that you would find that they are specialising for disabilities but at least they must have a certificate of dealing with those type of children. You can’t take me, I wouldn’t know how to handle such, you can’t just take who just comes from a teacher’s college to deal with such children,” says Mbingo-Gigaba.
Dilapidated infrastructure, teaching and learning, the school nutrition programme as well as learners’ transport came under the spotlight. Residents and parents in all the districts have raised issues ranging from school infrastructure to lack of security in schools.
The committee also visited schools that were damaged by storms. Sidlamafa Secondary School in Nkomazi is one of the schools that had its roof blown off by a storm in 2018. The school currently has mobile classrooms.
“The challenges was the infrastructure that we are having. As you remember, last time it was blown by the storm and thanks to the department that has able to provide us with mobile classrooms and we are hoping that very soon they would be starting with phase two of demolishing the building and build the new school,” says SGB Chairperson Patrick Radebe.
Meanwhile, the Mpumalanga Department of Education has acknowledged the concerns raised by the Parliamentary Committee and has committed to fix some of the challenges.
“These are the areas that we are prioritising as the department. Indeed they engaged us as the department where the MEC and myself presented our programme on this particular areas and also presented our plans. The matters they have noted in the majority of cases are not things we not aware of and we have plans to address,” says Head of the Department Lucy Moyane.
The Portfolio Committee has concluded its visits to all nine provinces.
