School of shame

BOTHASHOEK – The gates at the newly built Mahlagaume Primary School had been locked for the second day in a row and no learning took place.

The parents and the school governing body (SGB) demanded the Limpopo Department of Education to employ more teachers. “We have only four teachers tutoring more than 538 learners, we are now pleading with the department to hire nine more, this is not to our kids’ benefit. Our children deserve to be educated,” said an angry parent.

Steelburger/Lydenburg News spoke to a grade seven learner, Miranda Sebolela, about the situation at school. “Its difficult for us to learn. Since the beginning of the year we never had a single class of arts and culture, our books are still blank. Also, our teachers take time to mark our schoolwork, we cannot blame them as they have to deal with other classes as well. We just want to see our school with enough teachers,” she said.

The school’s SGB said they had been encountering the shortage of teachers since 2012.

“We wrote to the department in 2012 but nobody bothered to help, we even travelled to the department’s offices in Polokwane in 2014, but still we were sent from pillar to post,” said the secretary of the SGB, Ms Sinky Maile.

Maile added that one of the officials at the department even accused the teachers and SGB of admitting too many learners.

A teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, admitted that they found it difficult to teach the learners. “The truth of the matter is that the lack of teachers reduces the quality of time that a teacher can spend with a child. This has a negative impact on the quality of teaching and children’s ability to learn.” Spokesman for education, Mr Paena Galane told the paper that Mahlagaume deserved more teachers than the five they had.

“We will look into the matter, its just an unfortunate situation and we will ensure that it is solved,” he said.

The parents said they won’t stop locking the gates and protesting until the acting MEC Mr Jerry Ndou addressed them.