Update: Parties respond to the ANC march
The ANC Youth League's march on Monday afternoon to HTS Middelburg concurred peacefully and a memorandum was successfully handed over to the involved parties.
The march arose from the past few weeks’ unrest about the admission crisis at schools in and around Middelburg.
Particularly Afrikaans medium schools, like HTS Middelburg and Laerskool C.R. Swart, seem to be in the Mpumalanga Department of Education’s line of sight.
According to Mr Jasper Zwane, Head of Communications for the Department of Education in Mpumalanga, HTS Middelburg disposes of the required resources to utilise an English Home Language class.
“HTS Middelburg will consider the demands but we require them to accept English speaking learners. They must apply with the community’s needs and share their resources.”
Carien Bloem, Project Coordinator of Education at AfriForum, said that it’s unacceptable that Afrikaans schools are being targeted to change their language policy.
“The Department of Basic Education must realise that Afrikaans is not the problem. The problem is the poor quality education that’s being taught at approximately 80% of the country’s dysfunctional schools.
It’s useless to infiltrate and undermine the handful of successful schools and to blame Afrikaans for the problems.”
Councillor Muso Kubheka, Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance Youth in Mpumalanga, said that the Mpumalanga government is failing learners.
“The Infrastructure Backlogs implementation plan report that was signed off by Education MEC Reginah Mhaule on 7 April 2015, gives an overall confirmed condition of schools in the province.
The report states that 92% of all schools in Mpumalanga need between 11% – 100% of their structures replaced and could cost approximately R20 795 018 000.”
According to Kubheka, there is currently a need for 3 369 classrooms in the province and the construction of the R44 Million in Middelburg that was scheduled to begin in April this year, is not the only project that’s being delayed or forgotten.
The ANC spokesperson for the Nkangala region, Mr Thulare Madileng, said that the march was a success.
“We wanted to revive and remind HTS and other schools like C.R. Swart of the existence of the South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 which through the achievement of democracy in South Africa has consigned to history the past system of education which was based on racial inequality and segregation.”
He stated that they love Afrikaans just like all the other official languages but it should not be taught so that learners are deliberately excluded from all the schools in the province.
Meanwhile the memorandum that was received by HTS Middelburg and Laerskool C.R. Swart will be discussed next week by the schools’ management and a decision will be made.
The following demands were made in the memorandum:
• Stop Laerskool C.R. Swart from using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and other schools in the region excluding non-Afrikaans speaking learners
• Regulate their high school fees and bring them down below the inflation rate
• Fast track the development of infrastructure of townships and rural schools
• Transform the schools for equitable employment or teaching opportunities across all racial lines
• We demand that the agenda of nation building reflect the demographics of South Africa in equitable proportion
• We demand access to education as it is right and not a privilege for a selected few
• We demand an end to the usual blockage as fee and upfront payment increases
• We demand an end to racial discrimination and any form of discrimination that learners suffer during or before registration
• We demand an end to inconsistencies use and practice of policies (language and admission policies in particular) and the abuse of power by the SGB’s to their self-centred interests
• We demand government to move with speed in providing better and quality infrastructure to our township schools
Questions on the intentions of the ANC is still hovering since Zulu and Pedi schools in Mhluzi are also not accessible to everyone and the country’s demography is certainly not being taken into account.
Isn’t it strange how nobody reacted to the huge amount that the Education Department of Mpumalanga cannot account for? Or what about the money for a school that they used for other projects?
Why aren’t there marches against the major and obvious lack of management by the Department of Education or government as such?
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