No schools for hundreds of kids

The Eastern Cape department of education says only 50 children have not been placed in schools, despite the East London education district recording hundreds of pupils still in limbo.

In the third week of the new academic calendar, parents are still flocking to schools to find places for their children, but to no avail as most schools claim they are already filled to capacity.

Last week district director Sihle Mnguni said hundreds of children had not been placed and that this week the matter would be relayed to province to strategise what would be done to solve the crisis.

But yesterday education provincial spokesman Loyiso Pulumane said they were only aware of 50 displaced children.

“Parents have come to the head office to seek placement for their children and there may be others going to various schools and knocking on their doors, but we only know of 50 children that are not in the education systems and these are children that were logged through the call centre which we had open from January 13 to 23.”

Pulumane said the department’s human resources and infrastructure divisions will meet on Wednesday to find a resolution.

At John Bisseker Senior Secondary School in Parkside  yesterday, parents were  blamed for the  dozens of  children standing outside the school premises hoping to be placed at the school.

Clad in their full uniforms yesterday morning, the future of the  pupils who were supposed to have started Grade 8 this year was still uncertain.

A former employee at the school, Margaret Brown, reported the pupils’ plea to the provincial department. She said most of the  parents admitted they were at fault because they had failed to enrol their children  on time.

“The parents were negligent and that cannot be disputed, but at the end of the day these children should be in class,” said Brown.

School principal Tyron Vengadajellum said although he was concerned about the pupils,  the school’s  capacity had already been exceeded. “We are the only Afrikaans medium school in the community, hence we have the challenge  of overcrowding. The department would have to decide what will happen to these children.”

The children were from schools such as Parkside, Pefferville, AW Barnes and St Johns Primary School, which are all located a few metres from  John Bisseker.

Parent Vuyisile Gxwala, who struggled to enrol his child, said although he had gone to the district office, not much help came from there.

“We as parents were between schools and the district department where we registered our names, but it didn’t make a difference because it was our persistence that allowed most pupils into St Johns Road School.”

Gxwala said of the 25 children they were fighting for, 20 were placed without the intervention of the district office even though the school claimed to be overcrowded at first.