Parents hold teachers hostage for six hours over scholar transport

Eight teachers including the principal at Mpongo Primary School in East London were held hostage for six hours on Friday by irate parents demanding their children benefit from government’s scholar transport programme.

The parents and Macleantown community leaders brought teaching and learning to a grinding halt over their demand for their children to be transported to and from school by Bhisho.

The pupils, some as young as six, have to walk 10km to and from school, the protesters said.

The angry protesters also closed the N6 between East London and Stutterheim with burning tyres and rubble.

Parents and pupils blocked the school gate preventing teachers from leaving.

No-one was injured or hurt.

The teachers were seen sitting on the school veranda, while pupils sang songs demanding the free transport service.

A solitary policewoman from the Macleantown police station, which is just 3m from the school, monitored the situation from under a tree inside the school.

The Dispatch reported this week that gates remained closed at several Eastern Cape schools because the government had failed to provide transport for pupils.

Macleantown community leader Zandisile Roji said they would continue with protest action until their demands were met.

“We have decided to lock the teachers in here because our children do not have [scholar] transport and we were never notified about this.

“We can’t even take our children to other schools because we have already bought school uniforms for Mpongo.”

He said a meeting with education officials on Thursday proved futile.

“We did not get any clarity on what exactly the situation with scholar transport is for this year.

“The service had been running well for three years until they stopped it now.”

The protesters gave government seven days to sort out the impasse.

Some parents were heard calling for the teachers to be locked in for the weekend, but they were finally freed after 2pm having been locked inside the school premises since 8am.

Principal Lukhanyo Konqobe declined to comment and referred questions to the department of education.

Roji said should their children not benefit from scholar transport, they would take to the streets again.

“Our government is failing us, if they do not come up with a solution there will be no school on Monday.

“We do not want to resort to burning of things, but should they not sort this out then we will take action.

“All we just want is for our children to be educated so they do not end up like us.”

Provincial education spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani, said he was investigating.

“I just spoke to the Buffalo City Metro district director.

“She’s dispatched a circuit manager to go and deal with the matter, and explain the status quo.”

At the time of writing Pulumani had not commented further.

Department of transport spokesperson Unathi Binqose had not replied to questions sent to him at the time of going to print on Friday.

Eastern Cape police spokesperson Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana said police would continue to monitor the protests.

However, he would not comment on the teachers hostage situation.

“We deployed our members to disperse the crowd who had closed a national road with burning tyres and rubble.

“We recognise the right of people to protest, but not to infringe on the right of others.”