The provincial education department announced a R100-million emergency allocation as schools struggle with funding in the new year.
Many schools in the Northern Cape had a rocky start to the year as they didn’t receive their school feeding scheme money or funds to pay various bills. GroundUp found over 130 learners who have been unable to attend school in Garies because the department has not sent sufficient funds for the hostel.
On 31 January, the provincial education department announced a R100-million emergency allocation to schools to be disbursed in the first two weeks of February in order to “address pressing needs within the provincial schooling system”.
These funds would be for learning material, services and maintenance, hostel subsidies, learner transport and remuneration for temporary educators to address staff shortages.
Department spokesperson Geoffrey van der Merwe said that the emergency allocations will be paid to all schools this week.
“The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) were paid last week. Currently, the situation at schools allows them to continue as normal,” he said.
However, Garies High School principal William Hornimann said the department had wanted learners to be back at its hostel on Monday already. But about 135 learners, who are meant to live at the hostel while attending school in the town, were still stuck at home on Monday.
The hostel has no funding to provide the learners with meals, buy cleaning supplies to prepare the place for the learners arriving, or pay its electricity bill.
“The children can’t come to the hostel because we don’t have food to give the children,” said Hornimann.
Hornimann said the department’s promised over R200,000 but this is about a quarter of what is needed to cover the hostel’s bills. The last payment the school received was in May last year and that was to cover existing bills.
Currently, only matriculants, about 20, are staying in the hostel and only children who live in Garies are attending school.
Last month, the provincial South African Democratic Teachers’ Union raised concerns about the lack of funds in schools, as schools had not received their feeding scheme allocations or learning and teaching materials.
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scarlet mary
Diary of an Englishman after he moves to South Africa….
**August 1**: Just got transferred with work from London, UK to our new home in Phalaborwa, Limpopo, South Africa. Now this is a town that knows how to live! Beautiful, sunny days and warm, balmy evenings. I watched the sunset from a deckchair by our pool yesterday. It was beautiful. I’ve finally found my new home. I love it here.
**September 1:** Really heating up now. It got to 31 today. No problem though. Living in air-conditioned home, driving air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun every day like this. I’m turning into a sun-worshipper – no blasted rain like back in London! Had the back yard landscaped with tropical plants today. Lots of palms and rocks. No more mowing lawns for me! Another scorcher today, but I love it here. It’s Paradise !
**October 1:** The temperature hasn’t been below 35 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least today it’s windy though. Keeps the flies off a bit. Acclimatizing is taking longer than we expected. Fell asleep by the pool yesterday. Got third degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed three days off work. What a dumb thing to do. Got to respect the old sun in a climate like this!
**October 25:** This wind is a bastard. It feels like a giant fucking blow dryer. And it’s hot as hell! The home air conditioner is on the blink and the repair man charged R200 just to drive over and tell me he needs to order parts from @#$# Johannesburg. The wife & the kids are complaining.
**October 30:** The temperature’s up around 40 and the parts still haven’t arrived for the fucking air conditioner. House is an oven so we’ve all been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. Bleeding R4 million house and we can’t even go inside. Why the hell did I ever come here?
**November 4:** Finally got the fucking air-conditioner fixed. It cost R1,500 and gets the temperature down to around 35 degrees. Stupid repairman. Fucking thief. If one more smart bastard says ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I’m going to fucking throttle him. Fucking heat! By the time I get to work, the car radiator is boiling over, my fucking clothes are soaking fucking wet and I smell like baked cat. Fucking place is the end of the Earth.
**November 9:** Tried to run some errands after work, wore shorts, and sat on the black leather upholstery in my car. I thought my fucking backside was on fire. I lost 2 layers of flesh, all the hair on the backs of my legs and off my fucking behind. Now the car smells like burnt hair, fried bum and baked cat. The Weather report might as well be a fucking recording – hot and sunny. Hot and sunny, Hot and fucking sunny. It’s been too hot to do anything for 2 bleeding months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Fuck!!
**November 15:** Doesn’t it ever rain in this darn place? Water restrictions will be next, so my R5,000 worth of palms might just dry up and blow into the fucking pool. The only things that thrive in this hell-hole are the fucking flies. You don’t dare open your mouth for fear of swallowing half a dozen of the little buzzards!
**November 20:** Welcome to HELL! It got to 45 degrees today. Now the air conditioner is gone in my car. The repair man came to fix it and said, ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I wanted to shove the car up his backside. Anyway, had to spend the R2,500 of the mortgage payment to bail me out of jail for assaulting the stupid fool. Fucking PHALABORWA! What kind of sick, demented idiot would want to live here!
**December 1:** WHAT!!!! The FIRST day of Summer!!!!
You are fucking kidding me, right?
Noisefire
Ukraine: You have two cows. One of them feeds on American grass, the other feeds on Russian grass.