INLSA
Nkosinathi Sishi, HOD of the KZN Education Department, says its a hard decision to close a school.
Rural schools and even some township schools in KwaZulu-Natal are closing as their pupils migrate to schools in towns and cities which have better resources, the education department has disclosed.
In four of the province’s 12 districts, at least nine schools have permanently locked their gates in the past five years.
The National Teachers’ Union (Natu) has slated the closures. The union said that according to the department there was an R80 billion infrastructure backlog and teachers were also being uprooted by the closures.
The province’s education head of department, Nkosinathi Sishi, stressed, though, that the measure was a last resort.
“It’s a hard decision to make to close a school, but upgrading a school in an area where migration is already occurring is wasteful expenditure.”
He explained that a school was non-viable when its enrolment dropped to 200 but, for some, their entire pupil population had not been enough to fill half a classroom.
Sishi said the problem was the quality of education at the schools that lost teachers and department funding because they had so few pupils. “You lose teachers, but must still teach seven subjects. The reality is that you can’t do it… Schools have to close because they have to follow pupils.”
In the Umgungundlovu (Pietermaritzburg) district, the department was compelled to permanently close one school when pupil numbers dwindled to 15.
A district education official said the abandoned buildings were guarded by a private security company and that, in consultation with parents, pupils were being taken to nearby schools where possible.
Junior and senior primary schools were also merged when on the same premises.
A Pinetown district official said that, during the past five years, three primary schools in the district had been shut down.
These were: Vishwaroop Primary in Tongaat (which falls in the Pinetown district) and was closed after unrest – in this case, neighbouring Tongaat Primary School accommodated the displaced children; a school on private property which was merged; and Mlekeleli Primary in KwaMashu, which closed because it had only 11 pupils.
“There are various causes, but relocation of households to new areas is normally a major contributing factor, as in the case of Mlekeleli. There was a relocation of households from L Section in KwaMashu to Mount Royal and Mount Moriah,” the department said.
“The district finds alternative use for vacated buildings if they are state-owned,” a Pinetown district official said.
In the uThungulu district (Richards Bay), teaching and learning have ceased at a school, also because of declining numbers. Pupils are being housed at nearby schools, teachers have been reassigned and the buildings have been returned to the landowner.
In the uThukela district (Ladysmith), officials disclosed that four closures had taken place, where communities whose children had previously attended farm schools, had moved elsewhere.
National Teachers’ Union national deputy head Allen Thompson said the union had tried to discourage the closures. “Converting schools into white elephants is not what this republic needs,” he said.
Thompson said that the department should have found a way to attract pupils back to the schools by, for instance, upgrading them with laboratories and sports facilities.
“Primary schools have become a dumping ground for surplus staff and pupils,” he said.
“We are seriously opposed to it. This is why people are leaving the profession. It is killing their love for teaching.”
