Yesterday, parents whose pupils attend at Tholimfundo Primary School in Protea Glen had a protest.
The protest was about improper sanitation at the school and dysfunctional toilets.
Last year, Gauteng Department of Education promised the school that when they reopen this year, they will have new toilets, however, that was not the case.
Tholimfundo Primary still has the same broken mobile toilets they had about four years ago.
“We are very angry as parents because we expected new toilets for our children but its sad that they still have the old and bad ones.
“These toilets are no longer good, our children get sick and we just cannot take it anymore,” said Maureen Mngwane, who has two children attending at the school.
Pupils also expressed themselves by joining their parents in the protest, singing and chanting “no toilets, no school”.
Sibongile Hadebe, SGB secretary at Tholimfundo said that they will do whatever it takes to make sure that GDE does the right thing and get pupils proper toilets.
“We will do whatever it takes, even if it means disturbing academics or taking these pupils to the district because we cannot have our children getting sick while the government does nothing,” said Hadebe.
Teaching was disrupted at the school but things are back to normal and the government is being given two weeks to respond to the school’s needs.
GDE’s spokesperson, Oupa Bodibe said they do not accept the disruption of academics at the school.
“We don’t accept the disruptions at schools for whatever reason, but we also understand that schooling cannot go on in an improper environment.
“We have dispersed our infrastructure team to assess the situation and we might deploy temporary mobile toilets while construction takes place,” said Bodibe.
