A Soweto school governing body says it will continue to put pressure on the Gauteng department of education to complete its school built more than two decades ago.
On Wednesday, parents from Tholimfundo Primary School in Protea Glenn marched to the department's offices in Johannesburg to demand that the government build proper brick and mortar structures and fix existing infrastructure at the school.
Chairperson of the school's governing body Joseph Mathibedi said the SGB was having difficulty getting the department to act swiftly to calls for the school to be fixed and a new block to be built.
“Just a week after the schools reopened, the toilets at admin block had problems. The department sent a plumber who worked for a week or two but after that the situation got worse. When you flush, everything comes up. Teachers, all 52 of them, are using the one toilet, both males and females,” Mathibedi said.
The school is surrounding by veld, resulting in a problem with snakes, including under the 14 prefabricated classrooms supplied by the department years ago.
When you flush everything comes up. Teachers, all 52 of them, are using the one toilet, both males and females
— Joseph Mathibedi, SGB chairperson
The classrooms are used by the higher grades.
“These classrooms are not good. In summer they are very hot and in winter they are extremely cold. We had to buy 14 heaters to mitigate against the winter temperature.
“As you can see the classrooms are in an open space. During breaks, teachers have to monitor the children and ensure they don't go into the veld as there are snakes. The last snake that was killed by children was three weeks ago,” Mathibedi said.
The old brick-and-mortar classrooms are used by grade 1 to grade 4 pupils and grade 5, 6 and 7 pupils use the prefabricated classrooms.
Tholimfundo has about 1,000 pupils. The school was opened in 2000 after the first phase, comprising 13 classrooms, an admin block and toilets, was completed. Since then parents, teachers and pupils have been waiting for the second phase of the construction which would include 14 more classrooms, computer labs, a library, a canteen, a grade R block and sporting facilities.
“We don't want much from the department, we just want the rest of the school to be built and for maintenance to be done,” Mathibedi said.
Also among the demands submitted to the department is the installation of Wi-Fi to improve teaching and learning at the school.
“If you go to other schools in Soweto, you see people standing next to the gate with their cellphones wanting to connect to the school’s Wi-Fi but you will never see that here,” he said.
The SGB also wants the school to be moved from quintal 4 to quintal 1 where the Gauteng education department will have more responsibility for maintaining the school's facilities.
In the 2024 provincial budget, the department received R65.8bn and a total of R205bn over the next three years. This allocation includes R8.6bn to improve school nutrition and for use for scholar transport, learning and teaching material, schools of specialisation, expansion of universal access to grade R and subsidies for public and independent schools.
TimesLIVE Premium sent questions to the department but by the time of publishing this story, its spokesperson Steve Mabona had not responded.
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