WATCH: 18 people arrested as Lesufi looks to shut down illegal schools in Ivory Park

After reports emerged that there are schools that have been operating illegally in Ivory Park, Midrand, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has taken steps to shut down the five unregistered schools on Thursday.

The visits from the MEC has resulted in 18 people at the schools, including the Wisdom English Private School and the Grace Christian Combined School, being arrested by the South African Police Service (SAPS) officers.

Ivory Park police station spokesperson Captain Bernard Matimulane confirmed to The Citizen that among those arrested were two principals, who face charges of running the unregistered schools and acting in violation of the Immigration Act 13 of 2002.

While the other staff members were arrested for failing to produce passports or permits to prove that they were allowed to teach in South Africa.

Matimulane, however, noted that some of the suspects would be released if they were able to produce the documents.

“Those who fail to produce evidence that they aren’t in South Africa illegally will be detained and the matter will be dealt with in accordance with he law,” he said.

In a similar shutdown operation in 2018, the Gauteng department of education officials were denied entry at the Centauri Dual Medium Private High School in Centurion which they intended to shut down for operating illegally.

The officials were then prompted to go to the Wierdabrug police station, to open a case of a school illegally operating.

Gauteng education spokesperson Steve Mabona said the operational registration of the school was withdrawn by the department in April 2018 for non-adherence to the post-registration requirements.

“However, the school ignored the correspondence and continued to operate,” said Mabona.

“Among others, the school contravened the curriculum policy, multi-grade teaching is a norm, disregard of assessment and examination processes, utilisation of unqualified teachers without Sace (South African Council for Educators) certificates, a timetable not CAPS complaint, and learner tasks not CAPS complaint.”

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