Muslim school in crisis

A Cape Town Muslim community is on its knees - praying to keep the doors of one of its oldest schools in the province open.

The Western Cape Education Department recently announced its intention to close the Salt River Muslim Primary School.

Donald Grant, Western Cape MEC for education, wrote to the school governing body in May, and again this month, citing the school's dilapidated infrastructure and dwindling pupil numbers as among the reasons for the impending closure.

Since then, the school's governing body, teachers, pupils and the community have held a series of meetings in an attempt to stop the closure.

Yesterday, the chairman of the school's governing body, Goolam Fakier, said Salt River Primary was more than just a school.

He said it was an integral part of the community's heritage and that the community would not allow the its doors to be closed without a fight.

The school was built by the community in 1917 and has more than 200 pupils.

"The Islamic studies at the school are absolutely fantastic and the community is not going to take the school closing very lightly," said Fakier.

"The only thing we want from the department is for it to support the school, not close it.

"The department says it needs to build more schools in Western Cape: then why don't they invest in Salt River Primary, which would cost less money?"

The governing body has until July 22 to make representations to the department. Grant said the school site was not ideal for teaching and the building, which the department does not own, was dilapidated.

"Other schools in the immediate vicinity have space to accommodate the pupils. So it makes financial sense to consider using existing state resources, rather than spending additional money on buildings that we do not own," said Grant.

He said, however, that the school's future would be decided after consultations with the public, and its historic significance to the community would be taken into consideration.