Angry parents accompanied by members of the School Governing Body at George Dickerson Primary School locked down the school today (Thursday) in an effort to send a strong message the Department of Education.
Angry parents accompanied by members of the School Governing Body at George Dickerson Primary School locked down the school today (Thursday) in an effort to send a strong message the Department of Education.
Chairperson of the School Governing Body Berend Patrick Walters said the school has only 18 active teachers for 795 pupils. The school teaches pupils from Grade R to Grade 7. Each Grade comprises three classes of 40 pupils.
School principal Melville Meiring said the school has 20 teachers in total, but that two teachers on extended sick leave bring the numbers down by two.
"The department granted us two posts for teachers, meaning we're supposed to be 22 teachers – but the posts were never filled."
A Grade 4 teacher at the school was transferred to another school and was never replaced.
The school is one of a number of Eastern Cape schools represented by the Legal Resources Centre in a class action law suit against the Eastern Cape Department of Education. Meiring said the department owes his school well over R80 000. He said the school was paying four teachers from their own reserves, through school fees.
The Legal Resources Centre is currently negotiating with the Department to reimburse schools including George Dickerson and others in the same situation. Around 31 schools in the Eastern Cape are affected.
According to the LRC website the number of teachers involved in the class action currently stands at 150 and they are owed up to R25 million. "The government always complains about poor matric results but they fail to invest at this critical foundation phase," Walters said.
Walters said he is worried that the situation at the school will lead to disastrous matric results.
Meiring said he is forced to teach full time in an effort to cover for the dwindling number of teachers at his school. He barely had time for administrative work, he told Grocott's Mail.
Walters said the shortage of teachers meant there was poor supervision of the children at school.
"Because there is no one looking over these children, some are becoming wild and fight against each other," Walters said.
When Grocott's Mail called the district office of the Department of Education for comment, reporters were told that senior officials were busy in a workshop.
Making the situation worse, said Walters, was the fact that two teachers at the school had been on sick leave for a combined period of seven years, while still continuing to get paid full salaries every month.
"One of them has been on sick leave for over six years and another for over a year," Walters said.
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