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Panyaza left with no choice but to put pressure on schools

Panyaza Lesufi Education MEC delivers his plans on providing, more than 61 000 matric students with tablets. Picture Credit: Gallo Images
Panyaza Lesufi Education MEC delivers his plans on providing, more than 61 000 matric students with tablets. Picture Credit: Gallo Images

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi says that he has been left with no choice but to put pressure on some schools to accommodate more pupils because of a high influx of them coming into the province.

“I’m putting too much pressure on them (schools) to admit more learners. I went there to meet the community of Montana and they feel that the demographics around the area have changed so that school has more Afrikaans classes than English classes so they were persuading me to persuade the school to add additional classes‚” said Lesufi.

He was commenting on an attempt by the governing bodies of Hoërskool Montana and Hoërskool Overkruin to resist taking on an additional 40 extra English speaking learners at each school‚ as ordered by the government.

The schools sought an urgent interdict against the placements‚ arguing they did not have the capacity to accept extra learners and questioned the department’s interference in the role of the school governing bodies. The high court in Pretoria‚ however‚ ruled the matter was not urgent and struck it off the roll.

Lesufi‚ speaking at the official opening of Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela Primary School in Braamfischerville‚ Soweto‚ hinted that the there must have been a communication breakdown which led to the two schools wanting to interdict him to stop bringing in more pupils.

“So we were in discussions with the schools to expand English classes and I don’t know what happened...the negotiations probably broke down and yesterday we were served with court papers that we must appear in court today‚” said Lesufi.

 

 

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