Home Affairs helps learners receive identity documents ahead of exams
EBONY PARK – SACP, SADTU and the Ekurhuleni Department of Home Affairs launched their mobile outreach school programme to assist learners with their identity documents.
The Department of Home Affairs visited the Penelope Oracle Secondary School and the Kaalfontein Secondary School to kick-start their mobile outreach school programme
The programme, hosted on 28 October, was aimed at assisting Grade 11 and 12 learners to obtain their identification documents.
Learners had to come with a parent or guardian, their birth certificate and proof of residential address to be able to complete the process.
Ekhuruleni Region 4’s Department of Home Affairs coordinator, Malosi Ramphela explained the importance of their drive. Ramphela said that their target is school learners – primarily matric learners but not excluding other grades. The main aim is to document all school learners within the province of Gauteng without exception.
“The programme is going to run on a yearly basis as long as there is a learner without an ID in our schools… It is a policy that a learner must be accompanied by the mother for a first-time ID application either in a truck or in the office but if the mother is deceased, an informant with the mother’s death certificate together with the child`s birth certificate and the child themselves must be presented before the department’s official for the processing of the application.
“All the schools within the province must be assisted even though lack of resources is a challenge. Currently in the two regions I am responsible for, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg, we run this project with only four mobile trucks which makes it very difficult to cover the entire footprint of GDE within the two regions.”
Mazwi Mzamo, secretary for the South African Democratic Teachers Union said that they were working closely with the South African Communist Party to identify learners in need of IDs. “As a union we represent teachers which makes us directly involved as the learners are ours. In two weeks’ time, on 5 November, we are starting with examinations and no child can be left behind. The only way a learner can sit down for an exam is if they have their identification document of a temporary ID.”
Sandile Ngubane, secretary from the SACP branch, who started the programme in Ebony Park, added that the programme was aimed to fast-track the process for learners to get their IDs and it has been successful so far.
