The Department of Education (DoE) has seven days to act on Klipspringer Primary School’s complaints or the student governing body (SGB) will shut the school down indefinitely.

Parents of Klipspringer learners agreed to keep their kids at home.

Their issues include a structural inspection report stating that the slabs in some of the classrooms have deformed beyond their safety limits, and overcrowding in classrooms, resulting in learners attending classes outside with no roof or any shelter. There about 781 learners in a school that has a capacity of about 180.

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The grade R classrooms and one of the bathrooms are also used as storerooms.

The sickroom has been modified into an office where the teachers meet, since their staffroom is being used as a classroom. Overcrowding is a huge concern shared by other local schools.

A Laerskool Laeveld SGB member, Molly Mohlakoane, said they do not have space to accommodate grade ones in 2020.

“We already have grade Rs in the school who will fill the spaces that we have in grade one. We have asbestos classrooms, which are a health hazard for our learners, and the other classes that we have are overcrowded too.

The department can help us by removing these classrooms then building us ones. In that space we can have about nine classrooms,” she explained.

“We cater for the entire Stonehenge, all the way to the R40 and to Hilltop. All those kids must be admitted to Laerskool Laeveld. The parents are doing their best to maintain the school, however, they cannot build classrooms.

It is not easy telling parents that we do not have space for their kids,” said Mohlakoane.

Nelspruit Primary SGB members, Give Modipane and Farzahna Nomani said overcrowding is an issue at their school as well.

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“We had our open day, although we are already full and do not have space for any learners,” said Nomani.

Modipane said in their school there are learners from outside Mbombela who attend.

“Children from areas such as KaMagugu go there because of the quality of education offered, and we need to accommodate them. If we can have more schools, it will reduce the congestion. At some point we were forced to increase the number of learners in our classrooms,” he explained.

Acting HOD for education, Jabulani Nkosi said that in 2019/20 processes will be put into place to construct a new school in Mbombela.

“The school will assist the current ones with regards to the pressure. We secured the site. We will finalise the planning and designs of the particular school,” he said.

Education spokesman, Jasper Zwane said they are aware of the situation at the school following an assessment done on March 11.

After receiving the results of the assessment, a process to engage the implementation agent commenced.

According to Catherine Mokoena, SGB chairman at Klipspringer, the learners went back to school on Monday as the SGB awaits the response.