Vereeniging parents set up policing forum to protect R95m school

Parents in Sebokeng near Vereeniging on Wednesday vowed to protect the R95-million refurbished Setlabotjha Primary School after the department of basic education’s announcement that 57 schools in Gauteng were vandalised over the past two months.

Department of infrastructure and development MEC Tasneem Motara officially handed over the primary school to Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi and Gauteng premier David Makhura as pupils in inland provinces returned for the new academic year.

However, due to the high rate of school vandalism in Gauteng, parent Mmalesego Chauke said the community started a local community policing forum to protect the refurbished facility and its infrastructure.

“As parents we cannot do it on our own, we need the community and law enforcement to help us, but in the meantime we are not going to sit and wait for the burglars to come,” Chauke said.

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Last year, Lesufi urged parents and communities to protect their schools, after the state-of-the-art Menzi primary school in Ekurhuleni was vandalised just a week after it was opened. At least 21 other schools were either vandalised or destroyed by a fire during the 21-day lockdown during 2020.

“A collective effort to detect and report incidents to law enforcement agencies might yield positive results in curbing this criminality,” Lesufi said.

“We wish to reiterate our plea to the police to continue prioritising schools’ patrols and conduct thorough investigations to apprehend perpetrators.”

Setlabotjha Primary’s school governing body chair Vuyokazi Mokoena said following the vandalism at Tjhaba Tsatsi Primary School and the fire at Fundulwazi Secondary School in the Vaal, it was evident Setlabotjha needed
to be protected, especially by its community.

“Ward 39 has had many issues for the longest time, including unemployment, teenage pregnancy and crime, but since the school was opened a lot of things changed,” Mokoena said.

“The school was able to employ at least 75 new people from the area and new SMMEs [small, medium and micro enterprises] were taken into hand creating even more jobs.”

Meanwhile, Lesufi apologised to parents as another academic year started with 700 unplaced pupils across the province. He, however, assured them the pupils would be placed by the end of this month.

“Last year, almost 35 000 pupils were not placed. This year there are fewer than 700 who need to be placed,” he said.

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“The team is working to conclude the task. It is not because of a lack of planning or schools that pupils were not placed. We had hundreds of pupils who prefer to come to Gauteng to learn.”

Lesufi said 95% of teachers in Gauteng were fully vaccinated against Covid and that the online system was reopened for late registration to help the 17 000 applicants who had not submitted all the necessary supporting documents for admissions.

Gauteng department of education spokesperson Steve Mabona said they were working around the clock to ensure that the vandalised schools were ready, but if classrooms were severely affected they would assign mobile classes.

“We’ve started with the process of fixing those identified schools. In many schools they targeted the admin blocks. Most of them were ready to welcome pupils today,” he said.

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za