Poor roads leading cause of poor school performance, mayor told

LIMPOPO – Among the challenges raised during the Back-to-School campaign, which was held by the Greater Giyani Municipality last week, was the issue of poor access roads.

Many principals cited this problem as one that affects learner performance in their schools.

On her visit to several schools last Wednesday, the Acting Mayor, Tintswalo Baloyi was met with this challenge as she assessed the performance of schools around Giyani municipality.

“One cannot produce good results when teachers and learners can’t come to work because it rains,” explained Dokodela Ngobeni, the Principal of Ndhambi High School in Mzilela village, a school that obtained a 92% pass rate despite poor road conditions in the area.

The principal insisted that the school’s learners were capable of producing a 100% pass rate had there been proper roads leading to the school.

“Most of our teachers are not local and they use a bus to come to school. When it rains, the bus does not come to this area, which means roughly 90% of our teachers are not here,” he said, asking the municipality to repair the road.

Elizabeth Ngoveni, a resident in the village said grading the road is one way to solve the problem.

“All we need is for the road to be graded, along with culvert bridges here and there so that teachers are able to get to their respective schools even when it rains.”

The same issue was raised in several other schools that were visited on the day.

Other challenges raised included insufficient furniture and inadequate funding to help renovate schools.

Baloyi undertook to contact the Department of Public Works, which is mandated to repair roads.

“We will follow up on the matter of poor access roads to schools in all areas around Greater Giyani, and where there’s only a need for a culvert bridge, we will immediately attend to it,” she promised.

She motivate the Gr 12’s of 2020, saying they should make education a priority.

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