From afar, unlike other schools, nothing says Cracouw Primary in Blouberg, Limpopo, is a school.

The school at Cracouw village looks like a deserted building.

In fact, parents have coined a term to describe it: "dumping ground".

The school has 128 pupils, three teachers and principal.

Just like many rural schools in the province Cracouw Primary was built by community members.

One block with five classrooms was built in 1976 but heavy storms three years ago blew the roof off and it has not been fixed since.

"People from the department of education came and took pictures of the damage... they never came back," school governing body (SGB) member Amos Kgomo told Sowetan.

And now, pupils from grades R to seven use two other blocks that were built in 1940 by the community.

Two grades share one classroom. The school hall has been partitioned with planks into two classrooms.

The Grade R class is the worst off as half of it acts as a library and storeroom.

The classroom is untidy because of its cramped conditions, which have earned the school another nickname - Dikolobeng (pigsty).

In the early 1990s the Limpopo department of education built three classrooms but those were also damaged when the roof was blown away by a storm in September.

Again, people from the department came to take pictures.

"They again promised to come back to fix the building but we are still waiting," Kgomo said.

Tired of waiting, the SGB team decided to go to the department's headquarters in Polokwane to find out what was holding up the fixing of the school.

But to their horror they discovered that the department knew nothing about their plight.

"They claimed they only found out about the condition of our school when we got to the head office that day, despite reporting it to the circuit office and their official coming to take pictures," said SGB member Sinki Mohlopi.

The department then promised the SGB that it would deliver mobile classrooms within four weeks. They will only know next week whether the promise will be fulfilled.

But until then, the pupils have to bear the harsh realities that come with using the old, dilapidated 76-year-old building.

Mohlopi told Sowetan that when it rains pupils were sent home .

"Our children are not safe here. In fact this is not a school, it's a dumping ground," said Kgomo.

He said the school yard was also hazardous because of snakes, and that a pupil was beaten by a scorpion recently.

The National Treasury announced in a gazette on Monday that the Limpopo department of education would receive R80-million to spend on school infrastructure.

The money comes after the Department of Basic Education re-allocated R530-million that the Eastern Cape failed to spend on school infrastructure.

Limpopo's norms and standards implementation plan reflects that there is a major backlog because many storm-damaged schools still needed repair, while some schools have been built with inappropriate materials, such as mud and asbestos.

In an interview with Sowetan last week, the spokesman for the Limpopo department of education Naledzani Rasila, said storm-damaged schools alone would require more than R1.4-billion, adding that the department would intervene gradually until all schools were fixed.

In his budget speech on Wednesday, finance MEC Rob Tooley, announced that education would be given R27.2-billion, the biggest slice of Limpopo's R56.9-billion budget.

Tooley added that the department of education would be allocated an additional R100-million to address issues of schools damaged by storms across the province.

However, if that would be the sum to kick-start repairs project, then it would be like a drop in the ocean, given the hefty bill the department estimates is required to fix school infrastructure across the province.

macupeb@sowetan.co.za