Learners Sit on the Floor at This Old and Overcrowded Ekurhuleni School

Problems at Erasmus Monareng Secondary in Ekurhuleni, include overcrowding, dilapidated classrooms with holes in the floors and walls and a shortage of teaching staff.

• Parents and school governing board members at Erasmus Monareng Secondary in Ekurhuleni want the education department to refurbish the school.
• Problems at the school include overcrowding, dilapidated classrooms with holes in the floors and walls and a shortage of teaching staff.
• The Gauteng education departments say it will send mobile classrooms in the interim. Engineers will also be sent to assess the damage.

Parents and school governing board (SGB) members are demanding the education department take urgent action to refurbish Erasmus Monareng Secondary School in Ekurhuleni.

Problems at the school include overcrowding, dilapidated classrooms with holes in the floors and walls and a shortage of teaching staff.

It was built decades ago as a primary school but is now being used as a high school. The infrastructure and furnishings are outdated, and have not been upgraded for years.

According to SGB members, the situation worsened over the past few years as infrastructure deteriorated quickly, hindering progress at the school. They say the inadequate infrastructure is partly to blame for a drop in morale at the school.

They claim that the school’s operating budget is extremely low, with little to no financial support from the department of education. The school relies on donations from parents for minor maintenance and other needs, but it’s not sustainable.

Another challenge, the SGB said, is that the school’s science labs are outdated and under-resourced. Mobile classrooms, erected as a temporary measure about ten years ago, are now old and in a bad state. Some classrooms have holes in them, and gutters around the school are leaking. Safety is also an issue because the fencing has been partially vandalised.

When we visited the school on 20 January, the grade 8 learners were being taught under a tree because of the extreme heat in their mobile classroom. There were broken chairs and desks, and the science labs had no chairs. It also didn’t have taps needed for experiments.

SGB member Zakhele Buyambo said the department had previously promised to help, but to date nothing has happened. “We don’t know when the department will be able to help us,” he said.

Buyambo said the school did its best with a limited budget and fundraising to address staffing issues and do minor repairs. “The department needs to build more classrooms for learners to have a proper learning environment and to address the issue of overcrowding in classes,” he said.

Parent Nelisiwe Pheela said learners in some grades sit on the floor because there aren’t enough chairs and desks. “It’s basically a first come, first serve in terms of chairs and desks. Our science labs are still using technology from the nineties. Failure by our school to provide a comfortable learning environment is negatively affecting our learners.”

Haseena Ismail, the DA’s Vosloorus Constituency head and a Member of Parliament, also visited the school last week and released a statement expressing concern over the school’s poor infrastructure and lack of resources.

Among the other challenges, she found that the school needs 200 double desks and 100 chairs. She noted the “insufficient teacher-to-student ratio, exacerbated by a shortage of specialised teachers, particularly in mathematics”.

Haseena said the school mostly serves children from informal settlements and lower income households. “We urged the Gauteng Department of Education to prioritise the needs of schools like this and provide the necessary resources to ensure a conducive learning environment,” said Haseena, adding that she will urgently take this matter up in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.

Gauteng Department of Education spokesperson Steve Mabona said the department is aware about infrastructure challenges at the school.

He said the department will send engineers to do an assessment. “The Department will continue to monitor the situation at the school and intervene accordingly. We will deliver mobile units in due course for learners to use while working on fixing the school,” said Mabona.

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