Letter: . . . so is the high school

Malcolm Kensett of Ballito writes:

Once upon a time in a sleepy village called Ballito it was learnt that an airport would be built not far away.

This was important as during that time the existing airport was far, far away.

Life went on and a new modern highway was built and our village (now a town) was joined to the rest of the world. Still no airport. So, in time Ballito coined its own expression for any task or event that was late and ‘was coming’, to which the now common reply was “so is the airport”.

Well, we now have the airport and how wonderful it is.

A similar tale can be told about an “affordable high school”. Since the sleepy village was now a growing town, pressure for a local high school was also growing. This challenge was taken up by the governing body and parents of Umhlali Prep School about 12 years ago.

The first task was to identify all the suitable available land in the area, the most favourable being about six hectares in Compensation next to Collisheen Estate.

Mount Richmore had a site but it did not top the list. The developers did however make a grant of about R800 000 which was used to upgrade two local primary schools, Sizani and RA Padayachee.

At about the same time Umhlali Prep was donated land immediately adjacent to its sports fields.

This now became the focus and progress to proceed was quite rapid. Plans were drawn up, tenders issued, and all seemed well when two things transpired: The proposed development did not proceed and the land in question was not transferred to the Department of Education.

After much deliberation it was decided to transfer all the work done to the Department’s land on Zen Drive in Ballito.

Progress then continued at quite a pace and many details attended to. The ladies in our team had even designed the uniform. Then, no progress. We followed up at the Department’s offices in Pietermaritzburg and at first all seemed well. But again, no progress.

I then personally visited their offices and was informed by the lady in charge the location was in a privileged community and no funds would be forthcoming. They disguised this in many ways, but that was that.

Today about ten years later we have many high schools but none along the affordable lines of the Umhlali project.

It was an exhausting process and l must pay tribute to our chairman of the governing body, Jonathan de Wet and the principal, Astra Russell, as well as all the teachers and parents involved who put in hundreds of hours of hard patient work.

Today, all that remains are the files somewhere in the archives of Umhlali. It’s worth mentioning that Umhlali Prep stands as a shining example of the difference parent involvement can make. The same could have been the case for the affordable High School.

So, the next time someone says “it’s coming …. “, you can say “so is the high school”. The challenge now rests with the new generation of parents.

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