Gauteng Education MEC Ms Barbara Creecy launched “Operation Wakeup” in Diepsloot and asked families to make sure their children were ready for school on time.
She told over 700 parents at the Diepsloot Combined School hall on Saturday that they should also tell their neighbours about the operation because those not at the meeting were the ones most likely to allow their children to leave late for school. The imbizo follows a complaint that learners from Itirele-Zenzele Secondary School regularly walked to school after 9am.
MEC Creecy said truancy was outlawed by the South African Schools Act and learners should be at bus pick-up points before 06h45. Latecomers were usually learners in secondary schools, not primary schools, and it was the responsibility of families to wake learners up and make sure they were ready for school on time.
“We can't solve this problem alone. The learners don't sleep in our houses; they don't wake up with us in the morning. If you are still strolling to school at 10am, you are a truant and it is illegal.
“One of these days, together with the Department of Health and Social Development, we will round up these truants. We will give you a week or two to see if the situation normalises. If not, we will get tough,” MEC Creecy said.
MEC Creecy said coming late to school meant learners missed out on lessons that would benefit them, they disrupted the discipline in a class, and were flouting President Jacob Zuma's non-negotiables that teachers and learners should be in class, on time and learning for 7 hours of each day.
Learners also expose themselves to danger by not arriving in school on time, including stopping at taverns on their way to school and becoming a disciplinary challenge for educators.
Parents raised a range of disciplinary issues including gangsterism on scholar buses, some learners carrying weapons to school and at home, as well as the need to build more schools in Diepsloot so that learners should not rely on scholar transport.
The MEC said she would establish a task team that would work with the community of Diepsloot to address all the issues raised at the Imbizo. The task team will organise a workshop with Representative Councils of Learners, Cosas and other learner formations to indicate what they were doing as learner leaders to address this problem of late coming.
She will request the Department of Community Safety to conduct search and seizure operations in schools and scholar bus pickup points. “No drugs, knives or alcohol should be in our schools. We are warning those learners that we are coming, we will get rid of these things in our schools,” MEC Creecy said.
She said Lead SA had received pledges from interested businesses and individuals who wanted to adopt Diepsloot schools. However, parents should make sure that children were not walking up and down the streets during school hours.
The chairperson of the School Governing Body of Itirele-Zenzele Lucas Loati said a social project had recruited 50 security officials to secure scholar transport pickup points, drive with learners to school and ensure that learners were not loitering in the school yard during school hours. The school would get 15 security officials and the others would be used by the rest of schools in Diepsloot.
MEC Creecy paid tribute to anti-apartheid veteran Mrs Albertina Sisulu who struggled to put her children to school while her husband was imprisoned for 25 years, and she was in and out of prison during that period.
“Mama Sisulu gave us hope when there was no hope and she gave us light when there was not light. In her memory we are going to solve late coming at school and make sure our children get the education they deserve,” Creecy said.
