The people’s demand that their rights to education be recognised is receiving attention at the highest level of government. President Thabo Mbeki’s spokesperson Bheki Khumalo told the Mail & Guardian this week that the presidency has requested the national Department of Education to engage with the Western Cape education department about Masiphumelele High School — popularly known as People’s Power Secondary School.
The M&G first reported in February that Khayelitsha residents, fed up with the exclusion of their children from public schools, had set up their own school, calling it initially People’s Power. Now called Masiphumelele (”Let’s succeed”), it has registered about 1 800 learners who had been excluded from other schools on the grounds of fees, failure last year or age.
The school, located in the Andile Nhose Community Centre in Mandela Park, engaged from the outset with the Western Cape education department in an attempt to achieve official registration. Without this, the teachers remain unpaid and learners rely on donations for support materials such as textbooks and stationery.
This week the Western Cape education department said it ”must use its available resources as effectively and efficiently as possible. The establishment of a new school can therefore not be justified when sufficient accommodation already exists in the area …”
The school complied with all the department’s requests for information such as learners’ report cards a month ago, says Mnoneleli Ngongo, the head of the school.
”But everything is at a standstill. The department wants to take our children to other schools. That’s impossible — other schools in the area are overcrowded already. The department wants to destroy this school.”
Last month learners at the school took the opportunity of Mbeki’s opening of the Khayelitsha Magistrate’s Court to present him with a memorandum stating the school’s concerns. Khumalo told the M&G this week that the memorandum had been forwarded to MEC for Education AndrÃ