Suffer the children

This is the shocking face of education for the children of Selowe Primary in Limpopo - 18 years after free and equal education was promised to all by South Africa's first democratic government.

At this school, the 14 teachers and principal are not paid a cent for teaching 165 children.

And the provincial department of education will not recognise the pupils' promotion to the next grade at the end of this year.

Yet every morning the teachers report for duty and conduct lessons according to the official curriculum, under marula trees.

Trees are allocated for each of the grades. The Grade R pupils are accommodated in a shack that becomes unbearably hot in summer and freezing cold during winter.

The words "principal's office" are written in black paint on a piece of cardboard that has been nailed to another marula tree. The board also has principal Evans Seanego's cellphone number.

About 100 parents took the decision in August last year not to send their children to schools in two neighbouring villages when two children were almost raped while walking through the bush to school - after the department cancelled the bus service.

A 13-member delegation of people from Silvermine village handed a memorandum to the Limpopo Department of Education circuit office on December 22 last year, informing it of their decision and demanding mobile classrooms, textbooks and teachers. The department failed to respond to the memorandum in the seven-day period it was given.

The pupils, who live in Silvermine, about 120km from Polokwane, do without textbooks, stationery, chairs, desks - and even toilets. There is no water and teachers and pupils have to relieve themselves in the bush.

Although the department has been aware of the school's existence since January, said the teachers, it has done nothing to assist.

Authorities instead offered to provide transport to two state schools in neighbouring villages, but parents rejected this. Last year the department provided a bus service for only three months, then abruptly cancelled it.

From April to December last year, pupils had to walk through dense bush to the schools, about 10km away.

"The community was very worried about their children's safety, especially when they had to walk through the bush to the other schools. There were two attempted rapes last year," Seanego said.

"The only solution is for them [the department] to register this school and provide mobile classrooms," Seanego said.

Two of the teachers have diplomas. Most of the others have a matric qualification.

Community members produced written correspondence from as far back as October 2010 in which a department official indicated his support for the building of a school. A chief environmental officer who inspected the proposed site said it was suitable for a school.

But according to minutes of a meeting between the department and Seanego in April, the department said: "Currently there are no resources to establish such a school."

Pupils and volunteer teachers this week pleaded with the department to provide desks, chairs, textbooks, stationery and qualified teachers.

Phuti Mahlakgane, 12, said he liked attending his new school because it was close to home.

"But we want to be promoted to the next grade at the end of this year. We attend class every day like everyone else and we should be promoted," he said.

Fellow pupil Koena Papola, 12, said: "It's getting very cold now and we can't sit on the cold, hard ground because it's very uncomfortable."

Grade 2 teacher Francina Maphakela said she spent R16 a day on taxi fare.

"Yes, we know these children won't be promoted to the next grade at the end of the year and our work is in vain. But I am prepared to teach here, even for 10 years without pay, until the government recognises this school," she said.

Her colleague Margaret Hlako said she wanted to help change the children's lives.

"I feel for them. Some of them don't even have shoes, yet they come to school. It will be heartbreaking if they have to remain in the same grade next year."

Education department spokesman Pat Kgomo, who said the schooling issue at Silvermine was a "crisis", was adamant pupils would not be promoted because "to us, there's no school there".

"Nobody is assessing their work; those are not qualified teachers. We want it solved so we can see what catch-up programme we can put in place."

Kgomo said that the department had given the community an undertaking that it would provide a temporary structure next year.