Pupils suffer as parents' protest shuts schools

When construction began on an 800m stretch of road past the home of a municipal official, a community's anger boiled over.

The section of new road, which passes the front gate of Seweditse Gaobusiwe, Speaker of the John Taolo Gaetsewe district municipality in Kuruman, was the straw that broke the camel's back for residents of 25 villages - and sparked a new schools boycott in the Northern Cape.

The residents are demanding the upgrading of their gravel roads, and are willing to sacrifice the education of about 16000 children at more than 50 schools in the process.

The children have not been to school since June 5. None of them, including those in matric, wrote the recent exams.

One resident, Abraham Tikan, who has school-age children, said he was prepared to make the sacrifice because villagers were fed up with having to travel on bad roads every day.

"We want President [Jacob] Zuma to solve the problem. We will continue the protests until we see the machines coming onto the site."

Part of a R3.9-million project by the Joe Morolong municipality - one of three municipalities in the district - the road past Gaobusiwe's home has triggered a repeat of the mass school boycott in 2012, during which scores of schools were forced to shut their doors for three months.

Residents accuse the provincial department of roads and public works of failing to keep a promise made in 2012 - to tar at least 130km of the 720km of gravel roads in the area.

On Thursday, at a meeting convened by an organisation known as the Roads Forum which represents affected communities, villagers vowed to keep their children at home until they saw new roads being built.

With a show of hands, an overwhelming majority of the 312 parents present at the meeting indicated that they did not mind their children repeating a grade next year.

It was but one lone voice, that of a brave 17-year-old girl, who challenged them. She told the parents: "We don't want to sit at home; the years are catching up on us."

Matriculants, who will start writing their final exams in three months, fear the worst.

The affected schools ignored an offer by the Northern Cape education department to allow pupils who did not sit for the June exams to write them between July 28 and August 8.

Those who oppose the boycott have few options amid threats to burn down any schools that fail to heed the call.

A classroom housing the principal's office as well as administrative staff at the Keatlholela Primary School in the village of Heiso was set on fire on Wednesday because it had defied the boycott.

A maths teacher said pupils were "severely disadvantaged" by being denied an education.

"It's so painful. Children ask me on a daily basis when the schools will reopen but our hands are tied. We are not allowed to go near the school," he said.

Mathews Segeri, headmaster of Bareki Primary in the village of Perth, said: "We cannot say we support the strike but our main issue is that the government must listen to the pleas of the people so that we can return to school."

Community activist Kealeboga Maamogwa, who lives in the village of Heuningvlei, said: "We don't like protesting. We feel bad that the children are not in school but keeping the schools closed is the only thing that's going to open the ears and eyes of the government."

The Northern Cape public works department has undertaken to finance 73km of the roadworks and the Sishen Iron Ore Community Development Trust has pledged to fund 57km, but residents remain sceptical about either project seeing the light of day.

Lebogang Bathshabane, chairman of the Roads Forum, slammed the decision by the Joe Morolong municipality to build the 800m stretch of road, saying only Gaobusiwe would benefit from it.

"The budget for that road could have been used to upgrade the roads we have been complaining about which would have benefited a lot of people."

But Gaobusiwe said he played no role in the decision to build the road outside his home.

"I didn't even want it. I am nothing at Joe Morolong municipality. I didn't make any request for that road to assist me at all. My house has been there for more than 20 years."

He said the new road was not serving his home, but a nearby primary school. "It's just that the school is in front of my house."

The acting mayor of Joe Morolong municipality, Moses Mbolekwa, said the municipality had budgeted only R9-million for roads for the financial year which started this month.

He said the municipality was responsible for "internal" roads while public works was responsible for provincial ones, which included most of the 720km of gravel roads.

Bathshabane, who has a son in Grade 9 who is also not attending school, said: "I feel very sorry about that, but I can't say: 'Guys, let's open the schools.' Parents are sick and tired of what is happening."

govenderp@sundaytimes.co.za

How they voted

IN the national general election held this year, the ANC won 77.86% of the votes cast in the Joe Morolong municipality. The Economic Freedom Fighters secured 10.35% and the Democratic Alliance 4.05%.

At least 33900 of the area's 50926 registered voters participated in the election.