Lack of teachers concerns parents

PUPILS from St Joseph’s Primary School in Fort Beaufort may be forced to repeat the year if staffing issues are not urgently sorted out.

According to a number of concerned parents, pupils in Grades 1, 2, and 3 have been without teachers since March.

The children now spend valuable learning hours playing and often go for days without any adult supervision.

Parent Adna Kleinbooi, who has a daughter in Grade 2, said she and other parents have resorted to volunteering at the school to look after the children.

“The principal called a meeting last month to tell parents that the teachers had left because the department refused to keep paying them,” Kleinbooi said.

“But those were not teachers at all, they were unqualified volunteers who had just completed Grade 12.

“The principal keeps promising to sort it out but my main question is why were there unqualified teachers there in the first place and what were they teaching our kids?”

The school’s feeding programme had also been put on hold without a proper explanation, Kleinbooi added, leaving many children starving.

Guardian Miepa Draghoender,

who has a niece in Grade 1, described the situation at the school as chaotic.

“The worst part is the issue of food. There are some kids who don’t get any food at home because their parents don’t have any,” Draghonder said.

Felicia Toring, whose daughter is in Grade 2, said she had taken to volunteering at the school.

“I’m very concerned with this situation because I’m also not qualified to look after the kids,” she said.

“That’s why we’ve been urgently asking the principal what’s going to happen because they didn’t even get reports before the March holidays.”

Attempts to get comment from the principal were yesterday unsuccessful with the school’s phone going unanswered.

Education department spokesman Malibongwe Mtima said there were a handful of issues concerning the school which had been raised, including infighting amongst staff and the school governing body.

“There is a team out at the school right now which will investigate a number of things, but the department will only be in a position to comment on all the allegations on Monday once a report on the findings has been compiled,” Mtima said. —