A POT of samp cooks on a gas stove near a board where Grade 2 pupils are taking down notes for their class work.
The class at Volksrust Primary School in Volksrust, near Standerton in Mpumalanga, is also used as a tuck shop, kitchen and storeroom. It is built in the yard of a mosque.
There is barely space for pupils to play in the yard.
At lunch-time the Grade 1 to 7 pupils cross the busy N11 road to go and play on a field opposite the school. Two pupils were knocked down by cars recently while crossing the road, according to a parent.
Teachers and pupils share six toilets, and there is only one tap used by the 285 pupils and 10 teachers.
Lessons are halted when Muslim worshippers come for prayers every day. Funeral services also disrupt lessons. On Fridays, the pupils are again forced to leave school at noon to make way for the worshippers.
Last week, parents, fed up with inaction by the authorities, gate-crashed a meeting where MEC for education Reginah Mhaule was meeting school principals in Ermelo, 100km away.
It was a desperate move to get Mhaule to fulfil promises to build them a proper school.
"The premier (David Mabuza) was also here last year in March and he promised that they would build us a new school as a matter of urgency," said a parent who was part of the delegation to Ermelo.
The department delivered 12 mobile classrooms in an open field about a kilometre from the mosque - only after parents staged a sit-in at their offices in Nelspruit .
The mobile containers remain deserted because there is no fencing around the field. There is no water or electricity. The department's promises to equip the containers by June have not materialised either.
"They just dumped them there to shut us up," said the parent. The school pays R5000 a month to a private security company to guard the mobile classrooms.
To make matters worse, the school owes the mosque R18000 in rent, which is supposed to be paid by the department.
Spokesman for the department Jasper Zwane said Mhaule was planning to meet the school's governing body soon to discuss the challenges at the school and would make pronouncements only after the meeting.
macupeb@sowetan.co.za
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
One tap for 285 pupils
A POT of samp cooks on a gas stove near a board where Grade 2 pupils are taking down notes for their class work.
The class at Volksrust Primary School in Volksrust, near Standerton in Mpumalanga, is also used as a tuck shop, kitchen and storeroom. It is built in the yard of a mosque.
There is barely space for pupils to play in the yard.
At lunch-time the Grade 1 to 7 pupils cross the busy N11 road to go and play on a field opposite the school. Two pupils were knocked down by cars recently while crossing the road, according to a parent.
Teachers and pupils share six toilets, and there is only one tap used by the 285 pupils and 10 teachers.
Lessons are halted when Muslim worshippers come for prayers every day. Funeral services also disrupt lessons. On Fridays, the pupils are again forced to leave school at noon to make way for the worshippers.
Last week, parents, fed up with inaction by the authorities, gate-crashed a meeting where MEC for education Reginah Mhaule was meeting school principals in Ermelo, 100km away.
It was a desperate move to get Mhaule to fulfil promises to build them a proper school.
"The premier (David Mabuza) was also here last year in March and he promised that they would build us a new school as a matter of urgency," said a parent who was part of the delegation to Ermelo.
The department delivered 12 mobile classrooms in an open field about a kilometre from the mosque - only after parents staged a sit-in at their offices in Nelspruit .
The mobile containers remain deserted because there is no fencing around the field. There is no water or electricity. The department's promises to equip the containers by June have not materialised either.
"They just dumped them there to shut us up," said the parent. The school pays R5000 a month to a private security company to guard the mobile classrooms.
To make matters worse, the school owes the mosque R18000 in rent, which is supposed to be paid by the department.
Spokesman for the department Jasper Zwane said Mhaule was planning to meet the school's governing body soon to discuss the challenges at the school and would make pronouncements only after the meeting.
macupeb@sowetan.co.za
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
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