Learners at an Orange Farm school denied right to education: DA

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Learners at this school are being deprived of an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty because of the lack of intervention by the GDE.

Learners at the Refalletse Primary School in Orange Farm are being denied their right to education, these are the words of the Democratic Alliance’s Gauteng Shadow MEC for Education Khume Ramulifho following an oversight inspection at the school on Thursday.

The party says it has discovered that there has been no learning and teaching since last week as a result of water outage.

Joburg Water and the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) have not yet provided the school with water tankers, claims Ramulifho.

He continued; “This is worrying because our learners are now missing out on valuable learning and teaching time. Furthermore, this will have a negative impact on our learners at this school, as they will not cover the entire curriculum before the end of the year.

“During our interaction with officials at the school, it came to light that the school has a borehole, but it is not working because the pump was stolen years ago. To date, the pump has not been replaced.

“There are also issues with general maintenance at the school, and additional classrooms are needed because of overcrowding. The netball court is in a state of disrepair; classroom windows are broken, and a pile of loose bricks are lying at the back of the school.”

Ramulifho says learners dependent on the feeding scheme programme at the school are not benefiting from this as they are now at home.

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He further revealed that the DA will be tabling questions in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature to determine if there are any plans to renovate the school, build new classrooms, and attend to water leaks in the classrooms when it rains.

“Learners at this school are being deprived of an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty because of the lack of intervention by the GDE. The DA demands that the department urgently intervenes in this situation so that learning and teaching can continue in a conducive environment,” he concludes.