Curro explains debacle
MEC of education, Panyaza Lesufi, visited Curro Roodeplaat on Monday to meet with school management, following recent allegations of racial segregation that aggravated parents.
MEC of education, Panyaza Lesufi, visited Curro Roodeplaat on Monday to meet with school management, following recent allegations of racial segregation that aggravated parents.
Phumla Sekhonyane, spokesperson for the Gauteng department of education, said the privately owned school took Lesufi and Dr Chris van der Merwe, CEO of Curro Holdings, on a tour of the school.
“The school admitted that they might have made a mistake in the allocation of the pupils in different classes. They have agreed to sit with parents in the allocation process to ensure transparency,” she said.
She said the pupils would be grouped together according to their academic standards and not based on race. Sekhonyana said the department of education would help the school in future with integration.
She said since racial segregation at Curro Roodeplaat had come to light, many other parents from different schools came forward with similar allegations. “The MEC will conduct a province-wide inquiry into the matter in the following weeks.”
Curro management came under fire last Thursday when over 500 people, including teachers, gathered at the school to discuss claims of segregation at the school.
Thulani Ntombela, a disgruntled parent, said three of his children attended the school.
“When rumours of segregation came to light, we as parents took it very seriously,” he said.
Ntombela said it was disturbing to discover there were openly white, black and mixed race classes at the school.
“We asked the school to re-shuffle the classes and group pupils alphabetically and not racially. The school was given seven days to rectify the matter.”
Van der Merwe said Curro owned and managed 42 schools with approximately 36 000 pupils. “Of the 36 000 pupils, 63% are black. This supports and is reflective of Curro’s commitment to build schools that ensure integration among its pupils.”
He said Curro’s pupils were integrated across the various grades, in a manner that fostered a secure learning environment.
“This principle applies equally across all Curro schools. Recent media reports did not reflect the true situation and have been discussed with parents.”
He said Curro did not and would not tolerate any racial segregation in its mission to provide quality education to pupils throughout South Africa.
Zaakirah Vadi, spokesperson for Ahmed Kathrada Foundation (a foundation focused on non-racialism), said: “The justification of needing to enable pupils to maintain their cultures is exactly the kind of arguments put forth to justify apartheid, and has no scientific or educational basis.”
Ahmed Kathrada Foundation director, Neeshan Balton, said: “Schools are meant to be laboratories of nation building, not enclaves of outdated apartheid thinking.”
Also read:
Curro denies racial segregation
Claims of segregation at top school
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