The statement below follows an oversight visit to Schornville Primary School by DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP, and DA Shadow MEC for Education in the Eastern Cape, Edmund van Vuuren MPL. Please find attached soundbites by Nomsa Marchesi MP in Sesotho, isiXhosa and English. Pictures from the oversight visit are attached here, here, here, here and here.
Today, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP, and DA Shadow MEC for Education in the Eastern Cape, Edmund van Vuuren MPL, visited Schornville Primary School today to find out what the provincial Department of Education is doing to address the school’s infrastructural problems.
Parents have labelled the school a “death trap” due to its dangerous conditions and had refused to send their children there after a learner fell through its flooring last year and a wall collapsed in early July.
It took parents marching to the Department’s offices for some action to be taken regarding the school’s poor state of infrastructure. The 1224 learners at Schornville Primary resumed their classes on Monday and nine pre-fabricated classrooms are now being installed.
We were told by the principal that the school’s plank structure has been in place since 1970 and it is disheartening that it has taken so long for the school’s problems to be addressed – the principal has been requesting assistance from the Department since 2004.
Earlier this year, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) admitted that it had failed to meet every single one of its Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) targets, showing that it does not care about our children’s education or safety.
Last year, the DBE failed to connect a single school (out of a targeted 620) to electricity. The ANC government clearly cannot be trusted with our children’s futures when they cannot meet their own targets.
Just yesterday, it was announced that the unemployment rate had risen to 27.2% and, without government intervention, it will continue to rise.
With 9.6 million people now unemployed, the ANC national government needs to act with urgency to ensure our schools are safe environments that will equip learners with the tools they will need to get jobs and contribute to the prosperity of our country.
It is unfair that many children are forced to learn in dilapidated schools more than 20 years after democracy. The DA will continue fighting for our learners as we believe they have a right to safe and dignified learning environments.