A blunder by the provincial education department has seen thousands of pupils go hungry, and even starve, at 35 schools.
The department mistakenly declared the 35 primary schools closed as part of its rationalisation programme, but the schools are still operating.
Because of the bungle, 2,500 Grade R to Grade 7 pupils at schools in Dutywa and Butterworth have been excluded from the 2018-2019 budget and have been unfunded since April 1.
The children, mostly from poor rural families, have been without a nutritional programme for four months. Senior officials have known about this since April 17, according to an internal memo dated June 12 written by the department’s acting director of institutional development, support and governance, Melikhaya Mancoko.
The schools are running on empty because they have not received any funding for operation and maintenance.
The department has blamed a “communication hiccup”.
Spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said: “These schools are still candidates of rationalisation and realignment but there was a communication [hiccup] that led to this. Currently there is an interaction that’s taking place to ensure everything was communicated well.”In 2012, the department announced its intention to close 2,077 schools that had low enrolment figures and merge them with larger ones.
In his memo, Mancoko clearly states the schools were “mistakenly” declared as closed.
Mancoko wrote that the mistake was picked up on April 17 when the resource target table (RTT) reflected on schools’ 2018-2019 final paper budgets.
“From the RTT we noted that there are schools with zero budget and appear in the list of schools that were identified either for merger or closure but are still fully operational,” stated Mancoko, who in the memorandum instructed district directors to urgently submit a list of schools affected by the mistake. Principals and school governing body (SGB) members at the affected schools have formed a crisis committee to deal with the disaster.
Speaking to Dispatch, crisis committee chair Mpisi Matshayana said the schools were so severely affected they were left with little choice but to cut the school hours. “The children are hungry, the schools are not maintained, we are short of paper, in fact were are short of everything needed to run a school,” he said.
Matshayana, the principal at Dayimane Primary in Dutywa, which has 178 pupils, said the schools had been “paralysed”.
“We are in crisis. This has had a negative impact on teaching and learning. The children cannot concentrate.”
The committee had several meetings with the department but to no avail, he added. “The department realised that a dubious decision was taken by its official and promised to handle the matter. However, they haven’t. Clearly they do not have the learners’ interests at heart.”
Bulelani Matiti, secretary for the National Association of the School Governing Bodies, said they took a decision to cut schooling by about two hours to save the pupils from “starving to death”.
“We cannot keep the children at school for a whole day knowing very well there is no food.”
Matiti said the department seemed to be creating a “mess” with the rationalisation programme.
“They send people from outside who know nothing about the school and the community it serves to come and assess, and decide whether a school should be closed or not. That is never going to work. The community needs to decide,” said Matiti, who described the situation at the schools as “painful”.
Mtima said submissions had been prepared and the schools could “expect payment any time soon”...