People are saying the school has unacceptable levels of absence by both teachers and children, insufficient learning material, high rate of dropout, underqualified and underperforming teachers, children roaming the streets during school hours and some of them not even showing up for school.
Following all these allegations, the Advertiser paid an unannounced and uninvited visit to the school to carry out an inspection.
In most of the classrooms, teachers were found busy at their work (teaching).
No child from the school was found outside the classrooms or seen on the streets nearby the school.
The Advertiser proceeded to the staff room and interviewed the principal of the school, Mapule Gwangwa.
Gwangwa denied the allegations against her school, and said they were “false, baseless and disgraceful”.
She states that her school uses effective teaching and learning strategies, which have improved the children’s academic achievements.
She also mentions that all teachers at the school are qualified, dedicated and very competent in their work.
“We don’t have a problem of absenteeism in our school. Yes we do have some teachers who sometimes take study leaves when they have to write tests, and it’s just a few of them – only once per year.
Our children do not abscond from school; the children people see roaming the streets are not from our schools – maybe these are the children who were taken from our school to the school in Katlehong, or there are children from other local schools… They are not ours,” explains Gwangwa.
Gwangwa, however, admitted that some children don’t have enough learning material such as textbook, but stated that the school always make arrangement for those who do not have enough.
“Teachers always make sure that the children who don’t have textbooks have photocopies of the pages that they cover on that particular day.”
A few years ago hundreds of pupils at the school were left stranded after the “Department of Education decided to close down the school.
In 2011, learners from the school were taken to schools in Elsburg and Katlehong, but others dropped out of school, apparently because they did not want to travel long distances.
The closure came after the arrest of Pastor Josias Mabaso, who was running the school at the time.
Mabaso allegedly stole millions of rand from the Department of Education.
The 76-year-old pastor is alleged to have pilfered millions intended as subsidies for two of his schools, including the impoverished Ekukhanyeni Primary School, leaving the children with broken desks, no textbooks, no sports facilities and no feeding scheme.
However, the school was reopened in 2012 after a board of trustees re-registered it.
The school consisting of 850 pupils is currently run by the board of trustees chaired by Josia Tshiseve.
I can see all the allegations and am suprised and hurt that the school principal did not even mention the fact that those teachers are sacrificing their time,their finance, their lives so that those kids can have a better future like any other children,this days people work for money but they are not getting paid hence they wake up everyday to teach those kids,south africans lets be fair those teachers are doing their best and deserve all the credit they could ever get and the job they are doing on those kids is superb.