Shack school’s ten-year wait for prefab classrooms

Staff and pupils at a Butterworth shack school have waited more than 10 years for prefab classrooms promised to them by the Eastern Cape education department.

When a child was killed and decapitated in a forest near James Nguza Junior Secondary School in 2008, parents, teachers and community members took the decision to relocate the school to a “safer” residential area.

In 2009, shacks were built to service more than 100 pupils between grades R and 9 in Mgasi Maseleni village.

Teachers and pupils have had to endure harsh weather conditions in the shack classrooms.

Ndzolo Ngqovu, a parent and member of the school’s Concern Consultative Forum, said they had been “sent from pillar to post” by the department,  despite its promises to renovate the school.

When the school relocated in 2009, with the department’s approval, Nqgovu said they had hoped the matter would be “immediately attended to”.

“We were in communication with the late MEC Mandla Makupula, who had promised us the prefabs. The current MEC, Fundile Gade, echoed Makupula’s words. But to this day, we have nothing to show for that,” Ngqovu said.

“This issue is well known by the department and other relevant stakeholders. At one point, we were told the prefabs were in existence but they had been delivered to the wrong place.”

Nqgovu said the school escalated the matter to premier Oscar Mabuyane’s office.

“We were visited by the premier’s representatives who met with the district director, the community and the department of education. That communication continued until we were hit by the coronavirus,” he said.

School governing body chair Ndlelantle Mvila said pupils were struggling.

“We were told that we were in the top five of schools which needed prefab classrooms while awaiting construction of the school,” Mvila said.

“It is difficult to administer teaching, especially on windy, rainy and extremely hot days. When it’s raining and cold we switch on the heaters for the children.

“When it is windy, there’s not much we can do but deal with the howling sounds. When it is extremely hot, we take the children outside to learn in the shade,” Mvila said.

Education department spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani did not respond to the Dispatch’s queries. 

Another Eastern Cape school that has endured temporary classroom woes is Mcheni Primary School in Tsolo.

The temporary classrooms at the school were locked by a contractor after the provincial department of education failed to pay him, the Dispatch reported last month.

Mcheni is the same school where more than 200 pupils had to attend classes outdoors for the better part of 2019 because the mud and shack classrooms built by the parents in 1994 had collapsed.

A state-of-the-art building built at a cost of R17m lies in ruins on the site.

According to the school, Grade 7 pupils had not set foot in class since the contractor padlocked two classrooms and a staff room on July 7 — a month after the first batch of pupils returned to school under eased lockdown conditions.

Study materials were locked inside the classroom and teachers had no access to it.

The contractor said he was owed about R3.5m, including overheads for workers.