Vandals cost Nancefield Primary a week of school
As public schools reopened last week, Nancefield Primary School was unfortunately not able to allow learners onto the school premises.
As public schools reopened last week, Nancefield Primary School was unfortunately not able to allow learners onto the school premises.
The school building has been under construction since last year and the Department of Education provided mobile classes for the school to operate from until the building is complete.
On July 26, when learners were supposed to return to school, members of the School Governing Body (SGB) decided to close the school due to vandalism that took place at the mobile classrooms.
Deputy Chairperson of the SGB Nicolette Adams said: “Vandals came into the schoolyard for the second time this year to steal all of the electrical cables from the classrooms. It was just a big risk to have the children at school with all the live cables exposed.”
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According to Adams, the first time occurred in March and the Local Development & Economic Civil Association (LDECA) organised with Yaseen Mohamed to replace all the cables free of charge.
“Today the Department of Education sent out contractors to come reinstall cables, they were supposed to come last week but there was a delay. Everything at the school is ready for the children to come back to school, the only delay was getting the cables getting replaced so that the mobile classrooms could have electricity,” added acting principal Susan Mabasa.
With the pandemic, the learners and teachers already need to catch up with work and the week of closure adds to the pressure, however, the acting principal explained that there are programmes in place to get the 1122 learners at the school up to date with work.
Vandals stole cables as well as circuit breakers at the classrooms, they stole the floodlights too during the year.
“We are asking residents to report when they see vandals in our school. Our learners are supposed to be learning but the only time they come to school now is to fetch food and go back home until all the cables have been replaced and it is safe for all to return to learning. This is a luxury having these mobile classrooms, if you go to other schools, you will find that children are learning in dilapidated buildings so we are privileged and need to look after what we have. We need the community to take ownership,” concluded Adams.
Contractors told Mabasa that they would be taking all the damaged cables out and replacing the entire lines because it is not safe for them to just cut and join. The acting principal is also appealing to the community to take ownership of the school. At the time of the interview, the plan was to reopen the school on Monday, August 2.
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