Five learners were allegedly shot by the police in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, according to media reports.
This occured during a march this month by parents and learners demanding that the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) register their school. The learners suffered minor injuries.
People’s Power Secondary School was set up earlier this year by Khayelitsha residents who were fed up with the exclusion of their children from public schools for reasons such as being over age, failure to pay school fees and for failing their grades.
‘Here [People’s Power Secondary], education is free for all children and no child will be excluded because they are poor or because they have failed,” says Chris Ndabazambi, a parent at the school and a member of the Anti-Eviction Campaign, which is helping the residents set up and run the school.
The school operates from Andile Nhose Community Centre in Mandela Park. It had already registered 1 800 learners from Grade 8 to 12 and uses the 12-room community centre building as classrooms. It has a dedicated staff of 18 teachers, who work without pay and teach about 90 to 120 learners per class. ‘They [the teachers] are qualified. Most graduated from Western Cape universities and colleges and some have been teaching part-time elsewhere,” says principal Mzoliswa Jara.
Since its establishment, the school has been in a conflict with the WCED regarding the school’s recognition. There have been a number of meetings between the two parties and the WCED has been adamant that there is no necessity to register the school.
‘The department tells us that there are schools that already exist that can admit our children. But they disregard the fact that those schools demand school fees and will not admit some of the children because they say they are over age. We want our children to have their right to education, regardless of their age or financial situation,” Ndabazimbi says.
The decision to march was aggravated by the WCED’s failure to attend a meeting with learners, teachers and parents a day before the march took place. According to Jara, this was not the first time that the WCED failed to attend meetings: ‘There have been a couple of meetings which have been postponed. For instance, they promised to come to the school to meet with learners, staff and parents on March 4, and they did not show up. And today another official was supposed to be here at 10am to check the learners’ reports and teachers’ qualifications. He has not showed up and when we called him he said he won’t be able to come because he is still discussing the matter with other people at the department,” says Jara.
Learners and parents decided to march to the WCED’s offices to make their voices heard. It was soon after the community handed a memorandum over to departmental officials that violence erupted between learners and the police.
Among other things, marchers were demanding the registration of their school, recognition of staff and provision of extra classrooms. Presently Grade 12 learners start their classes in the afternoon. ‘We want textbooks and stationery. Presently we rely on books and pens that are donated by the residents,” Ndabazimbi says. ‘We do, however, have computers”. The computers were donated by Old Mutual to Khayelitsha residents and are located in the community centre where the school is based.
Rudy Buys, a representative of the WCED, says the department has appointed a task team to assess the situation in the school. ‘The team will look at three points: firstly, where the learners come from; secondly, to determine if there is space available for them in surrounding schools; and thirdly, to see if the educators in the school are qualified,” he says. ‘In terms of that assessment, the department will determine if there is a need to register another school in that area.”