IN PICS | Tears and challenges as KZN goes back to school

The education department was hamstrung in dealing with infrastructure challenges which include asbestos roofs in some KwaZulu-Natal township schools.

This is according to the minister of basic education Angie Motshekga, who led a visit to coastal schools to monitor the start of the academic year. 

She was joined by premier Nomusa-Dube-Ncube and education MEC Mbali Frazer.  

“It's illegal to have an asbestos roof. What we can do is to treat them in the meantime so that they are not harmful to learners,” said Motshekga.

The visit kicked off at Kwa-Zubumnandi preschool and Inkonkoni Primary School, both in Umlazi, west of Durban, Bright Future Special School in Newlands, south of Durban, and Anton Lembede Mathematics, Science and Technology Academy in La Mercy, north of the city.

“We have a major problem with infrastructure. It manifests itself in different ways. In this school you can see it's an old school built by apartheid. No staffroom, no specialist ablution facilities. The number of toilets does not match the number of learners. It confirms our ongoing challenges,” said Motshekga.

Added to these was the mushrooming of new settlements and dilapidated state of some old schools.

She said despite the hurdles, she was proud of the officials who are at the coalface of teaching and learning.

“The principals are undeterred; they have been emphatic in saying that all their pupils would learn to read and write,” said Motshekga.

The province has the highest number of schools in the country, more than 6,000.

The education minister called on teachers to rise above the power cut woes gripping the country.

Frazer said the department was aware of the challenges faced by a number of schools in the province, including Bhekisisa High School in Ntuzuma.

The school was on Tuesday thrust into the spotlight when ActionSA leader Zwakele Mncwango shared a number of issues plaguing the school, including asbestos roofing, shortage of teachers and dysfunctional ablution facilities, which have been raised for more than five years.

Mncwango said the school had 680 pupils but only 14 teachers and was a health hazard.

“We know the risk of how asbestos can make one susceptible to lung cancer. Why is the department exposing young people to this risk, especially after government took a stance to remove it from schools?

“Bhekisisa is one of the schools awaiting the Treasury department,  which is busy with audits. This is one of the schools which we would be busy with starting from tomorrow and moving forward,” said Frazer.

She would not be drawn on stating the reason the school's toilet problem had dragged on for so long.

“Unfortunately, we cannot go back to five years,” said Frazer.

The provincial department has also not tallied the number of pupils in its system, as it is awaiting pupils who may still arrive.

Dube-Ncube responded to accusations that schools were adversely affected by budget cuts. She said education, health and social development were often left untouched by budget cuts.

“You would know that whenever there are budget cuts every department must cut their budget. But we always try to exclude them by taking all other departments' monies and redirect it to where there are cuts in these three major departments,” she said.

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