The tally of KwaZulu-Natal schools that have been damaged in last week’s widespread unrest has risen to 139. This figure is up from the initial assessment of 20 on Saturday.
Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu has visited some of the schools to assess the damage. At Skhululiwe Secondary School in Elandskop at Pietermaritzburg, four classrooms were gutted.
Mshengu says the perpetrators targetted ICT classrooms and rooms that store food for the feeding scheme.
He says they will provide mobile classrooms to schools that were set alight.
“There are schools where only ICT labs were targetted. Others they vandalised the kitchens and stole the grocery and others they couldn’t find anything. We saw a strange thing where they basically stoned the school and vandalised the windows, the doors and every other thing they could vandalise. So the impact differs from one school to another but in total there are 139 schools that have been affected,” says Mshengu.
SA Unrest | Impact of destruction on schools:
Meanwhile, schools are expected to reopen on Monday, 26 July, following early closure due to the third wave of COVID-19 infections and adjusted lockdown regulations.
The adjustment to Level 4 lockdown led to the closure of all schools with school holidays brought forward and lost teaching time being expected to be made up during the winter holiday period.
The reopening of schools in KwaZulu-Natal is expected to continue:
