Education backtracks on Schornville deal, promises new plan to fix school

The provincial department of education has made a last minute U-turn on its commitment to place the 1,200 pupils from Schornville Primary School in King William's Town at better neighbouring schools. Instead the department has now made a statement about a new commitment to fast track the construction of the replacement school.

Last Wednesday, parents from Schornville had removed their children from the prefab classrooms that they deemed unsafe and stormed into the grounds of neighbouring school's Kingsridge Junior and Dale Junior and demanded their children be allocated classrooms. This resulted in the closure of the two targeted schools and two other schools in the CBD.

On Monday, pressed for a response from a crowd of about 400 agitated parents, the education superintend-general Themba Kojana assured parents their children would be placed at neighbouring schools on Tuesday. However, the tune changed when the department came back on Tuesday morning saying they have managed to secure funds from the national department of basic education to build them a new school.  The department also committed to send 16 new prefab classrooms to the school.