Back to school’s tears and tear gas

Education MEC Lesufi Panyaza Lesufi has promised “all will be placed” by next month.

A protestor throws tires onto a burning pile outside Hoerskool Overvaal in Vereeneging on 17 January 2018. Members of the ANC, EFF and parents protested outside the school due to a court ruling supporting the school not include English First Language students this year as it is an Afrikaans school. Picture. The protest turned violent, with police using stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters. Yeshiel Panchia

More than one million pupils went back to school across Gauteng on Wednesday, but more than 28 000 will have to sit at home longer because the provincial department of education’s placement system has failed to find places for them.

Frustrated parents complained about the failures of the computerised placement system, but education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has promised “all will be placed” by next month. Grade 1 first-timers had the usual tears – but what overshadowed the back to school celebrations was the protests at Afrikaans-medium school Overvaal Hoërskool in Vereeniging.

Economic Freedom Fighters members and members of the Congress of SA Students protested against a High Court in Pretoria ruling which set aside a Gauteng education department decision to admit 55 English-speaking pupils into the school just two days before school began. The protest resulted in tyre’s being burnt on the roads and stun grenades and rubber bullets being used by police to disperse the crowd. The protest was still ongoing yesterday.

Lesufi said the 55 pupils turned away from Overvaal have been taken in at the Riverside High School, about 15 km away.

– Citizen reporter

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