About 1 800 children have been removed from the Masiphumelele school — formerly known as People’s Power secondary school — in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, and the Western Cape Department of Education has closed the school.
The department says the premises occupied by the school were formerly an adult basic education training centre and should once again be used for this purpose.
But ”this is an excuse and a tactical scam by the department to close the school down,” says Chris Ndabazandile, acting chairperson of the school’s governing body.
The Mail & Guardian reported in February that People’s Power was set up by Khayelitsha residents and members of the Anti-Eviction Campaign to cater for students excluded from other schools on grounds related to fees, failure last year or age. Within a month the school had signed up 1 800 students and within three months it had 28 voluntary teachers.
A week later the M&G reported that police had arrested and harassed members of the Anti-Eviction Campaign who were central to the formation of the school.
In May the education department wrote to the governing body to say it had taken ”an in-principle decision to register the school” subject to certain conditions.
Now school representatives say the department has reneged on this by refusing the students entry to the school. Students have been told that they must register at another school, called Umthawelanga Primary. But only eight grade 12 students have been registered leaving 200 grade 12s and ”all the other students sitting at home”, says Ndabazandile.
The department says this is a temporary measure while the department builds another school in Khayelitsha to ”accommodate the learners at [People’s Power]”.
Ndabazandile maintains the school has met all the department’s conditions for registration. ”We were told that the reason the school is closing is that the African National Congress does not want it. Why … are they playing these unconstitutional games with us?”