The neighbour of the Athlone woman accused of operating a fake school from her living room says they’ve been trying to shut her down for years.
Angeleen Jacobs, the principal of Education For Africa, has denied operating a fake school, after family of a 14-year-old girl raised the alarm.
The girl enrolled in January to complete grade 8 and 9. But the family became suspicious after she was apparently given Grade 1 work to do, and never received a report card.
When the family and Daily Voice asked Jacobs to produce her WCED registration papers, she made up excuses but insisted she’s a registered adult learning centre.
The neighbour who asked to remain anonymous as she fears retaliation, reached out to Daily Voice after the article was published last week and says they have been trying to get Social Services to inspect the premises.
“She is running a school there during the day as we often see all the kids coming onto the property to attend the classes. However my other concern is that she takes care of a lot of other kids, who I'm not sure if she fosters them or not but they are mostly unsupervised during the day, walking to school by themselves and to the shop.”
“There are young boys sitting in the driveway during the day, they are smoking weed and drinking which is becoming a problem to the other people's kids in the road.
“It is a concern and we have on numerous times complained to her about all the people coming onto the property. We have notified the landlord as well but he always makes excuses about coming to check up.”
The WCED confirmed, upon investigation, that the facility is not registered with them in any capacity and would conduct a site visit soon.
When Daily Voice tried to contact Jacobs regarding the latest allegations, she did not respond.
marsha.dean@inl.co.za