ANGRY pupils at a Ngcobo high school allegedly burnt down the school after being demoted to their previous grades as they had been promoted irregularly.
Manzana Senior Secondary School in Ngcobo is the 10th school in the province to be vandalised by angry pupils since 2011.
The school was burnt down on Thursday when the pupils ran amok and set alight the school’s computer lab and damaged the school’s windows.
This was in reaction to officials from the provincial department of education failed to attend a parents’ meeting to discuss their demotions.
The ANC in the province called for the department to take action against anyone involved in the burning of the school.
ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said: “Our government must show no mercy to all those individuals with propensity to destroy public assets such as schools, clinics, public libraries, burning roads, municipal buildings and properties.
“All those found to have been involved in these acts must be harshly prosecuted .”
A report on how the Grade 10s and Grade 11s were promoted last December was scheduled to be tabled at the meeting.
But the department instructed the school to send all the affected pupils back to their previous grades.
When the Daily Dispatch visited the school, two fire-engines were still hosing down the burning buildings.
All the school’s windows had been broken and computers had also caught fire and others were destroyed.
A local ward councillor Sizeka Guma said when she got to the school pupils started throwing stones and damaging windows at the school.
“I was warned not to come here with my car … the first class to be burnt was the computer lab. There is nothing left now at this school,” she said, adding that all records and books which were kept at the school’s office s were all burnt.
She said when the fire-engines came to stop the blaze, pupils prevented them from entering the yard by throwing stones resulting in one engine’s windscreen cracking.
Education department’s provincial spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said they were shocked by the incident.
“We condemn these acts of criminality, vandalism and arson. We are confident that the law will take its course ,” said Pulumani.
Asked about the promotions by the school which were later overturned by his department, he said they were aware of alleged “systematic collapse and differences at the level of management at the school”.
“As the department we are also compelled to conduct our own in- depth investigation into the management of the school,” he said, adding they would come down hard on whoever was found to have flouted the law.
“That was a fully serviced school, fully equipped and an example of a school we want to have in the Eastern Cape. It’s a huge setback, while other schools are crying about mud structures.” — /
Ngcobo pupils torch school after outrage over ‘demotion’
Manzana Senior Secondary School in Ngcobo is the 10th school in the province to be vandalised by angry pupils since 2011.
The school was burnt down on Thursday when the pupils ran amok and set alight the school’s computer lab and damaged the school’s windows.
This was in reaction to officials from the provincial department of education failed to attend a parents’ meeting to discuss their demotions.
The ANC in the province called for the department to take action against anyone involved in the burning of the school.
ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said: “Our government must show no mercy to all those individuals with propensity to destroy public assets such as schools, clinics, public libraries, burning roads, municipal buildings and properties.
“All those found to have been involved in these acts must be harshly prosecuted .”
A report on how the Grade 10s and Grade 11s were promoted last December was scheduled to be tabled at the meeting.
But the department instructed the school to send all the affected pupils back to their previous grades.
When the Daily Dispatch visited the school, two fire-engines were still hosing down the burning buildings.
All the school’s windows had been broken and computers had also caught fire and others were destroyed.
A local ward councillor Sizeka Guma said when she got to the school pupils started throwing stones and damaging windows at the school.
“I was warned not to come here with my car … the first class to be burnt was the computer lab. There is nothing left now at this school,” she said, adding that all records and books which were kept at the school’s office s were all burnt.
She said when the fire-engines came to stop the blaze, pupils prevented them from entering the yard by throwing stones resulting in one engine’s windscreen cracking.
Education department’s provincial spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said they were shocked by the incident.
“We condemn these acts of criminality, vandalism and arson. We are confident that the law will take its course ,” said Pulumani.
Asked about the promotions by the school which were later overturned by his department, he said they were aware of alleged “systematic collapse and differences at the level of management at the school”.
“As the department we are also compelled to conduct our own in- depth investigation into the management of the school,” he said, adding they would come down hard on whoever was found to have flouted the law.
“That was a fully serviced school, fully equipped and an example of a school we want to have in the Eastern Cape. It’s a huge setback, while other schools are crying about mud structures.” — /
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