PICS: Class of their own

Desperate community leaders in Mfuleni have set up classrooms in churches and halls to accommodate more than 1 000 children who are still waiting to be placed in schools.

This week parents and local teachers created their own school, which they named Fairdale, for primary and high school learners, following a dispute with the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) over the placement of mobile classrooms.

Xolisile Qwesha, deputy chairperson of the school steering committee, explains: “There was a dispute with the department about the mobile classrooms.”

“Last year the classrooms were created for the children of Mfuleni because of the overcrowding but the classrooms were placed in Silversands which is 3km from Mfuleni. That community does not want those classrooms there”.

With the support of parents, they set up the new school and are doing their best to ensure children are receiving an education.

“All the schools in Mfuleni are full and we have more than 1000 children in our school,” says Qwesha.”

NO PLACE TO GO: Kids were not placed in school

“We have asked the department about moving the classrooms but they have not responded. We have separated the children and put the high school in church halls and primary school in the community hall and we will continue because we believe this thing is jeopardising the children’s education.”

WCED spokesperson, Jessica Shelver, says the matter has been prioritised and the infrastructure directorate has been in negotiation with the Mfuleni Education Forum to enable the completion of the mobiles placed on the Silversands site.

“There seems to be different groupings within the community who are abusing the situation for their own purposes,” Shelver says.

“This makes the situation incredibly difficult to manage. We are engaging with the City of Cape Town to release a site so that we can establish a primary school.”

Shelver says officials will meet today to discuss the next steps.

“Our priority at this stage is to ensure that we place learners as quickly as possible.

“To accommodate the growth in numbers, we are building schools where we can. One of our biggest challenges is available land in the metros to do so.”

“Meanwhile, the learner population in our Metropole North district is continuing to grow, in line with general population trends.”

“The City of Cape Town can only expand northwards, as migrants continue to flock to Cape Town, because of limited space on the Peninsula.”

She says the WCED has increased its spend on infrastructure from R445 million in 2009/10 to R1.6 billion in 2018/19

“The WCED completed six schools last year. One of which is a replacement school, so five new brick and mortar schools.”

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