The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has embarked on a drive to educate parents about their rights regarding the education of their children and to ensure that pupils spend more time in school.
These issues were highlighted at the launch of the Parents’ Educational Rights programme in May.
According to Gauteng MEC for Education, Ignatius Jacobs, the campaign will focus on learner attendance during school hours and extra-mural activities, classes without teachers and overcrowding in classrooms.
It will also focus on maintenance problems at schools and the safety of learners, particularly girls who are targets of sexual abuse.
‘Too often we have found that parents do not know their rights and this campaign will begin a process whereby parents of learners at our public schools form a partnership with the GDE in order to ensure that their children receive quality education in a safe environment,” Jacobs said.
He added that in order to strengthen the implementation of legislation and policies, parents ‘must monitor the situation at the schools and report any deviation from the legislation and policies to the GDE”.
The MEC’s representative, Lebelo Maloka, said the GDE embarked on the project after realising that parents were not aware of their basic rights.
‘For example, if a child is expelled by a school, parents don’t often know that the school doesn’t have the right to do that, or they don’t know that children are entitled to seven hours of contact with teachers each day,” Maloka said.
The campaign is also a response to the high number of learners on the streets during school hours, which is creating concern about their safety.
‘Many learners roam the streets. They are then subjected to rape or may be knocked down by cars,” Maloka said. ‘During school hours they are the responsibility of the school and the principal, and if something happens to them the principal or the MEC can be sued.”
To keep learners at school, Jacobs has introduced stricter rules for children wanting to leave during school hours. He has even ordered that ‘school gates be locked during the school day, or rigorous access control must be implemented”.
This has drawn strong criticism from some quarters, including the Congress of South African Students.
The Parents’ Educational Rights programme also aims to ensure that all schools conform to the standards of post provisioning.
‘If any learner is in a class of more than 40 in a primary school and 35 in a high school, this must be reported to us immediately,” Jacobs said.
He added that parents must familiarise themselves with legislation governing their rights. The GDE plans to distribute posters and pamphlets with this information, as well as addressing community meetings.
If these rights are violated, Jacobs encourages parents to call the GDE’s new toll-free number 0800 00 5175 and ‘an immediate investigation will follow [into the complaint]”.