Pupils at Mary Waters High School are boycotting classes for a week, to highlight the ongoing teacher shortage at the school, as well as safety concerns.
Pupils at Mary Waters High School are boycotting classes for a week, to highlight the ongoing teacher shortage at the school, as well as safety concerns.
After their parents gathered outside the school with them yesterday in protest, the latter formed a Crisis Committee that plans to tackle these and other concerns.
"The parents have closed down the school until [Tuesday] the 5th," said chairperson of the committee, Leon Trompetter.
Pupils and parents of the school were among the 3 000 people who took part in last week's march to the education department for teachers, textbooks and improved security at Grahamstown schools.
"We are striking to show the education department that we are serious about our school – we need those teachers," Grade 11 learner Elswith Prince explained.
"There's no real progress – we don't even do anything but sit outside for half of the day."
"This story has been coming a long way," Trompetter continued, referring to the teacher shortage problems he says started in 2001.
Explaining the aims with which they were going to approach the education department, Trompetter said: "Our demand is that we want teachers – not tomorrow, but yesterday."
Namhla Tukulu, a Grade 11 learner at Mary Waters, says pupils often only have one period a day. "It's a sad feeling, because at a certain point we don't have an English language teacher, and most jobs are in English," she says. "They are taking away our opportunities whereby we get to study, our right to education."
A group of pupils who call themselves the Concerned Learners of Mary Waters (CLOM) spoke to Grocott's Mail.
Since early February, they have met with their principal and various education officials in their search for answers, but to no avail.
"They didn't listen or answer our questions," said Loyiso Gunguluza, the group's chairperson.
"They just chased us away." Another issue on the agenda for the Crisis Committee is the state of security at Mary Waters.
The fence surrounding the school is broken, and the school grounds are being used as a public thoroughfare.
"Our children are getting mugged on school grounds," said Trompetter, referring to the gunpoint robbery of a Grade 8 boy by four people.
Patricia Hopshire, the boy's mother, was also at the protest.
"It made me very angry," she said. "One boy called my son to go play rugby. When he got to the quad, three others surrounded and held him while the first took his cellphone and R50 at gunpoint."
