As the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) prepares to march on the KwaZulu-Natal education department to protest against packed classrooms‚ figures released by the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Thursday revealed that 387 of the province’s schools are overcrowded. DA MPL Mbali Thuli said the department had confirmed that the province was plagued with overcrowding‚ despite comments earlier in the week by education MEC Peggy Nkonyeni that this was not a problem.In a reply to a question tabled last month in the legislature‚ the education department has now confirmed that all six of the worst-affected regions were in the northern parts of the province‚ with most of them being predominantly rural.uThungulu‚ with 159 overcrowded schools‚ was by far the worst affected‚ followed by uThukela (50)‚ AmaJuba (42)‚ Ilembe (33)‚ Zululand (21) and uMzinyathi (20).There are about 6,000 schools in the province.Ntuli said the reply confirmed a serious problem.“Four-hundred schools is a staggering number‚ and these figures are an indictment on this province’s education department. Every time we visit schools we see this problem‚ so it is difficult to comprehend why the MEC is blind to it‚” she said.Meanwhile‚ Sadtu’s KZN secretary Nomarashiya Caluza said the union was intensifying its protest against overcrowding‚ with the situation in KZN comparable to the worst areas in the country.“The problem in KwaZulu-Natal is very severe‚ especially in rural schools. If you look at the three worst provinces (Limpopo‚ the Eastern Cape and KZN)‚ you will note they are all rural. Overcrowding is something that we see mainly in these rural schools‚” said Caluza.She said the situation made life extremely difficult for teachers and pupils.“It means that teachers will not have enough time to attend to each individual learner. We know that the capacity and capability of our learners is not all identical‚ and teachers are expected to engage with each learner to help them – but this is very difficult when it’s overcrowded‚” she said.The union will march to the department’s office in Pietermaritzburg on Friday‚ and plans to protest at a later date outside the department’s national office in Pretoria. - TMG Digital/Sunday Times..