Eastern Cape parents back in court to demand ‘plan of action’ for overcrowding at schools

After years of being subjected to overcrowding, parents of pupils at four Eastern Cape schools have gone back to court to compel the provincial education department to produce a plan of action on how it will change the situation.

In the latest development in a six-year battle affecting thousands of pupils who attend overcrowded schools in the province, on Thursday the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), which represents concerned parents from the schools, approached the Mthatha high court to oblige the department to clarify its plan within 90 days. 

The court reserved judgment in the matter. 

The court case dates back as far as 2018 when a group of parents of pupils at Attwell Madala Senior Secondary School in Mthatha, Enduku Junior Secondary School in Ngcobo, Dudumayo Senior Secondary School in Mqanduli and Mnceba Senior Secondary School in Ntabankulu — some with more than 100 children in a class — took the Eastern Cape education MEC and other government actors to court for relief. 

Numbers at the schools routinely exceeded 80 pupils per class, which is double the number of infrastructure norms set as the limit per classroom., and sometimes reached more than 100 pupils in a single classroom. 

The LRC argued extreme overcrowding at the schools was not only a safety hazard but also deeply compromised pupils’ access to quality basic education.  

Pupils were often crowded three to a desk with no space to write, and reported not being able to hear the teacher. Such large class sizes made it impossible for teachers to maintain discipline and discern when a pupil did not attend a class. Pupils were often expected to mark their own work. 

Despite the LRC securing substantive relief in the case after the court directed the department to provide 65 temporary classrooms to the four schools within 90 days, construction is yet to begin at Mnceba Senior Secondary School. 

The LRC argued that after lengthy delays, the education department finally sent a list of overcrowded schools in June this year, but no plan of action was provided on how it would resolve the problem.  

In its 94-page list of schools the department revealed a staggering 424 have at least one classroom with 60 or more pupils. This means between 21% and 31 % of schools in the four education districts have at least one classroom that is severely overcrowded.  

About 92 schools have five or more severely overcrowded classrooms and at least one classroom that holds 100 or more pupils.  

The LRC argued that to date, and despite many requests, the department failed to explain what concrete steps it will take to remedy the situation. 

Cameron McConnachie, co-lead for the LRC’s education programme, said: “To go beyond inaction to legally resist providing clarity on a plan of action to ensure children can access the quality basic education recognised as their constitutionally enshrined and immediately realisable right is, frankly, indefensible.” 

Mpendulo Matiwane, school governing body chairperson of Mnceba Senior Secondary,  said: “No construction of new classrooms has begun at our school, despite the fact that we got a court order which says the education department has to build more classrooms to deal with overcrowding. Classrooms at our school remain extremely overcrowded, which means our children can’t get the education they deserve.”

TimesLIVE