The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) is deeply concerned about the terrible conditions that learners with special needs must endure in Mpumalanga.
The Portfolio Committee on Education’s Focus Intervention Study (FIS) on special schools, which was tabled to the Legislature in October 2026, paints a disturbing picture of systematic decay and neglect.
The report is based on unannounced, official oversight visits to six of the 18 special schools in Mpumalanga. It clearly shows that these vulnerable children are, despite government’s lip service regarding “inclusive education”, largely forgotten by the state.
The Committee exposed, among other things, the following systemic problems:
- A critical shortage of qualified special-education teachers and therapists, especially speech and occupational therapists (SASO therapists) and nurses.
- Dilapidated infrastructure, inadequate sanitation and serious safety risks.
- A complete collapse of specialised learner transport for disabled learners in rural areas.
- A lack of adapted learning materials and curricula.
Concrete examples from the report are shocking:
Basizeni Special School has 268 learners, but no state-subsidised transport. The school has no electricity, but is billed between R80 000 and R90 000 per month for utilities. There is a shortage of 11 SASO therapists.
At Kamagugu Inclusive School, there are 335 learners, but only 12 of the 25 required SASO therapist positions have been filled. Deaf learners have nowhere to go after Grade 4.
At Mantjedi Special School, only five of the 12 teachers have a qualification in special education. Only six of the ten toilets work and there is only one stove to cook for all the learners. A total of 19 learners do not have access to transport, while some of them live up to 100 km away.
At Ethokomala Special School (a youth care centre), there is only one nurse for the resident boys, no 24-hour medical support, no security cameras, and serious shortages of working computers and protective clothing.
These children represent more than statistics. They are someone’s child, one with dreams and potential. They deserve a safe, dignified learning environment.
The Freedom Front Plus demands an urgent intervention by the MEC for Education, Lindi Masina. She should produce a clear action plan for restoring infrastructure, immediately fill vacant specialist positions and ensure safe, appropriate transport for all special learners.
The party will keep pursuing the matter in the Legislature until there is marked improvement.
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The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.