Gatvol laaities from a school took matters into their own hands and marched to the Western Cape Education Department’s offices in Mitchells Plain where they held officials hostage.
According to a source, on Tuesday about 100 children from Kwa Faku Primary School walked all the way from Philippi to Lentegeur to air their grievances with WCED officials after their classrooms allegedly flooded last week.
Once there, they held officials captive inside the offices and Law Enforcement was called to defuse the situation.
Due to the planned demolition of their old school building, the learners have been moved to mobile classrooms, but the source says they were gatvol of trying to learn in wet and cold classrooms.
“They marched all the way and there were two adults in the crowd. They arrived at the Metro South offices and demanded better classrooms and refused to let the officials leave,” says the source.
“They were protesting because they said the Nutec classrooms were wet and cold and they told the officials to let them learn in the WCED offices while they waited for their new school.
“They tore up their school books out of frustration.”
Law Enforcement spokesperson, Wayne Dyason, says on arrival officers found a large group of people surrounding the office building and preventing cars from leaving the property.
“They were not violent, but they protested and prevented anyone from leaving. An official came out to speak to them and at 6.20pm, they dispersed. No property was damaged.”
The Daily Voice visited the school yesterday, but the principal declined to comment and refused access to the classrooms.
WCED spokesperson, Bronagh Hammond, says the school is due to be replaced as part of the WCED’s school replacement project.
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“It is planned that a new school will be completed by 2019. In order to do this, the learners of the school need to be placed in mobile classrooms placed on the site,” she explains.
“The old building is then demolished and a new one is built.”
She says the school community had been misinformed that the old building would only be demolished in October.
“They demanded that it take place in the (June) school holidays. The group which included learners, parents and community members forced their way onto the district premises.
“Unfortunately, they did vandalise some of the books that were in the library,” she says.
Hammond says the planned demolition will take place during the June holidays and that this has been communicated to the school.