Container school overflowing with pupils

Johannesburg - Pupils Thuto Lefa Secondary School in Lawley Johannesburg continue to be taught in overcrowded mobile classrooms and are still on a rotational learning system, which is not a conducive environment for learners to access quality education.

Thuto Lefa Secondary School has a total of 2 200 learners and about 60 learners per classroom. The school is riddled with numerous challenges, with the lack of resources very evident. Concerned parents and staff have complained that the school does not have enough mobile classrooms to hold classes in.

Upon our visit to the school, we saw damaged containers and classes of various grades where learners were severely overcrowded – particularly Grades 8 and 12. The school needs at least 12 more mobile classrooms, and concerned parents said they had raised these issues with the Department of Education.

Situated 8km south of Lenasia, the Lawley township is plagued with high school drop-outs, teenage pregnancies, and a high youth unemployment rate. The challenges faced by the school are quite glaring as the school does not have running water and no proper ablution facilities.

The chemical toilets are only serviced once every two weeks instead of being serviced every two to four days, which poses a health risk for both learners and teachers. The school also has electricity challenges, and the furniture is broken. A member of the School Governing Body (SGB), Nompumelelo Rada, confirmed that the school was faced with numerous challenges and little had been done to rectify them.

“We are facing many challenges here at Lawley. Over and above the electricity challenges we face, we have one container (which was a classroom) that is now being used as a kitchen,” Rada said.

She said the environment was not conducive to the pupils’ learning experience and needed urgent intervention from the Gauteng Department of education. Spokesperson of the Gauteng Department of Basic Education Steve Mabona said the Department was aware of the overcrowding at the school and plans to replace the dilapidated mobile classrooms with alternative ones were under way.

“We have identified Lawley as one of our high-pressure areas, which is rapidly growing and needs an additional school. As such, we have already earmarked a piece of land in the area to build a school, which will alleviate pressure from the current mobile school.

Ultimately, we have plans to ensure that the mobile school is replaced by an alternative one.

“Our officials are working tirelessly to improve the situation at the school and constantly update parents and local leaders on the developments we have made in this regard. In the interim, a process to procure additional mobile units that will be provided to the school has commenced,” said Mabona.

DA Gauteng shadow MEC for Education Khume Ramulifho said the party conducted an oversight inspection at the school and said they were disappointed to find that learners were attending school on a rotational basis.

“This is unacceptable as the rotational learning system has ended, and all learners must be attending school on a full-time basis.”

He said the DA wanted answers from the Gauteng Department of Education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi.

“We demand to know when will his department deliver additional mobile classrooms to ease overcrowding in classrooms and to ensure that there are enough classrooms so that rotational learning can end as a matter of urgency. We also demand that this school must be provided with additional, much-needed resources to ensure that learning and teaching take place in a conducive environment,” Ramulifho said.

He added that the DA proposed that MEC Lesufi conducts a forensic audit into the state of mobile schools across the province.

“This will assist the department in prioritising the building of brick-and-mortar schools to ensure that schooling is not compromised due to a lack of adequate infrastructure. We will not allow our children to suffer due to the department’s incompetency in failing to provide resources to the schools,” said Ramulifho.