A group of Mdantsane parents got the shock of their lives when they accompanied their children to school on Monday morning only to find the school had ceased to operate.
The parents at Nokulunga Junior Primary School in NU10 said when they got to the school, the main gate was padlocked.
There were no teachers anywhere in sight and the board with the school’s name on had been stripped off.
They said although there had been talks that the school – which accommodated grades R to 4 – was earmarked for the provincial government’s rationalisation programme of closing small and unviable schools and merging them with bigger and better resourced neighbouring schools, they were against the move.
Buffalo City Metro’s education district director, Edgar Klaasen, said even though in 2016 the school was put down as one of the schools for rationalisation, it had not been officially closed and continued to be functional.
“The school is not closed. We cannot close a school without holding a public hearing,” said Klaasen, adding that officials would be sent to the school to investigate what had happened.
When the Daily Dispatch arrived on Monday around mid-morning, the parents had gained entrance into the school grounds through a small gate.
A number of pupils were seen roaming around the school but there was no sign of any schooling taking place.
A parent, Monwabisi Marele, said education district officials had told them that the school had closed two months ago and funding had been redirected to the two schools that the pupils had been transferred to.
“We were shocked to hear this because up until last week we had been sending our children to school with no knowledge that it was going to close on Monday,” said Marele.-arethal@dispatch.co.za..