Schooling resumes at Mdeni High School after learners blockaded a national road
On Wednesday, 15 February 2017, learners of Mdeni High School near Alice in the Eastern Cape held a silent protest on a national road over their unhappiness with a lack of access to their new classrooms.
The silent protest, which went viral on social media, saw learners take their class to the freeway, resulting in traffic coming to a complete halt.
At the heart of the matter, new classrooms were built at the school through funds that were donated by the National Lotteries Board. This was because the old community-built classrooms were no longer conducive for learning.
However, due to a breakdown in communication the contractor was not paid on time and this resulted in the service provider locking classrooms and denying learners access to the building.
The Eastern Cape Department of Education has been seeking solutions to end the impasse since September last year.
Following this week’s protest, the Education provincial Head of Department, Themba Kojana, conducted a site visit to the school to engage the school’s principal, parents, the School Governing Body (SGB), teachers and learners to listen to their concerns and find immediate, medium and long term solutions.
After intense discussions, an agreement was made between the department and the contractor, who then unlocked the padlock for schooling to resume.
In turn, Mr Kojana has committed to resolving all the administrative concerns that were raised by the contractor in the medium term.
Mr Kojana also said parents would meet next week to seek permission to demolish the old structure in order to erect more classrooms to accommodate an increase in admissions at the school.
“It is regrettable that the situation was allowed to reach this point and it is unacceptable that learners are denied access to their classrooms over a dispute that could have been avoided.
“While the concerns of the contractor are receiving urgent attention, I have asked departmental officials to investigate this matter so that those responsible for mismanaging this project are held accountable,” Kojana said.
The Eastern Cape has been identified as a priority province to improve the quality of education, from infrastructure to improving learner outcomes.
The programme of eradicating mud and plankie schools is progressing well, but more still need to be done.
In his State of the Province Address, Eastern Cape Premier Phumulo Masualle said the provision of quality education is central to the task of building a province that is characterised by a high standard of living of its citizens.
“It was with this understanding in mind that at the beginning of this term, we undertook to create better access to quality education as one of our apex priorities,” Masualle said.
Through the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative, government has provided water to 615 schools, decent sanitation to 425 schools and electricity to 307 schools.
For more inquiries, contact:
Mali Mtima
Cell: 084 230 1976
