Disinfecting and cleaning of a school classroom.
- Mpumalanga Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane says Makibe Primary has been shut down, and pupils and staff relocated.
- A social media video showing the school’s crumbling infrastructure went viral last week.
- Mtshweni-Tsipane said the province had been working to improve conditions for the pupils at the school before that.
Mpumalanga Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane has relocated pupils and teachers from Makibe Primary School to Mogalitwa Primary School as part of a temporary measure after she expressed her dissatisfaction with the dilapidated state of the farm school.
Makibe Primary School has been shut down and 36 Grade 7 pupils relocated, Mtshweni-Tsipane said on Monday.
“As we speak, that school has been closed with immediate effect – there will be no teaching and learning at the school.
“We have [discussed] with parents that we need to demolish that structure so that nobody takes advantage and thinks of trying to relocate their children back to where they were,” Mtshweni-Tsipane said.
The move follows a viral video on social media showing the horrifying conditions of the school structure – holes in the floors, broken roofs, collapsed walls and building debris strewn about.
Mtshweni-Tsipane said the provincial Department of Education had been working on getting pupils to a safer and compliant school, with mobile classrooms set to be installed in a location identified by the department this week.
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She said the department would be working with the municipality to install eight mobile classrooms which have already been procured.
A neighbouring mining company, Inyanda, had pledged 10 more mobile classrooms, two of these would be donated by Eskom, Mtshweni-Tsipane said.
“The children that are hosted in this school from next week will be taken to a new temporary school that has been arranged for the Makibe children to be educated in,” Mtshweni-Tsipane said.
A borehole would be drilled in the classrooms’ location on Tuesday and a fence erected, she said.
“Within this week, we will be completing all those nitty-gritty things that need to be put in place so that we ensure there is conformity in that regard.”
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However, parents of 10 pupils at Makibe Primary School expressed dissatisfaction with the relocation, saying it is their desire to protect the legacy of their farm school.
Mtshweni-Tsipane said: “[This] is not practical for us as government because we can’t make such huge infrastructure for relatively 10 children, we need to be considerate and also take into cognisance the development that is happening in Emalahleni Municipality.”
“Permanent infrastructure has to be built and we can only do that taking into consideration that we have plus minus 10 learners in Makibe farm area where we need to relocate those children,”she said, adding that the land belonged to a farmer unwilling to donate it to government.
