An Eastern Cape school with no principal or deputy is counting its problems after 250 children failed maths last term because of a lack of teachers for the subject in three grades.
And with no-one at the helm to manage the situation at Clarkson Junior Secondary School in Tsitsikamma, the Eastern Cape department of education said it had been left with no choice but to intervene.
In the meantime, education MEC Fundile Gade was in Nelson Mandela Bay on Tuesday for the start of a two-day safety and security seminar where he addressed issues including the recent spike in burglaries and armed robberies at Eastern Cape centres of learning.
While schools in the Nelson Mandela Bay district have become a soft target for criminal activity, about 128km away, the pupils at Clarkson are also being failed — literally.
Clarkson Junior Secondary School caters to children in grades 3 to 9 from nearby commercial farms and the peri-urban settlement.
The grade 5, 7 and 8 pupils have reportedly not had a dedicated maths teacher since June.
As a result, they all failed the subject during the third term.
Education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said they were attending to the dire situation.
“The matter has recently received the attention of the district,” Mtima said.
“This follows a communication from the school detailing [these issues].
“The district director has started actioning the submission to appoint a PL1 [post level one] educator against the deputy principal post.
“The principal’s post was, meanwhile, advertised in the latest bulletin issued by the department last week.
“In fact, based on the challenges at Clarkson, the district requested prioritising the principal’s post.
“So the matter is being addressed following the communication from the school requesting an intervention from the district and the province.”
According to insiders, there is also no teacher for the grade 3B class.
The principal went on sick leave and will only return after the first term in 2025.
No-one is acting in his position.
Pioneering the plight of the pupils, Simphiwe Dada of the Khanyisa Education and Development Trust, said when parents engaged the school inspector on the matter, it was indicated that pupils were also very likely to fail term four under the circumstances.
“On top of this, the school has a leadership crisis as there has been no principal or deputy principal since 2023,” Dada said.
“According to parents, the lack of leadership means that when they visit the school to raise concerns ... at times there is no-one to listen to them.
“The crisis at the school typifies the collapse of delivery of basic services to the working class and the poor which is caused by government austerity measures and the contempt with which the rights and interests of the poor are treated in this country,” Dada said.
School governing body chair Eugene Afrika lamented the situation.
“It’s not like we’re only one teacher short — we’re short of four,” Afrika said.
“This has been coming on for a while, we’re struggling.
“Just before the September holiday, we closed the school out of protest but it was reopened again after the principal caused havoc by returning from his sick leave.
“He left again two days later to continue his leave. He is coming back next year.
“One teacher needed to split herself between three classes and when I saw that I started crying.”
Afrika confirmed that 250 pupils had failed their maths exam.
Concerned parent Mhlangabezi Mxobo, 52, said his son had been excited to go to grade 8 next year.
However, those hopes had dwindled due to him failing maths — a compulsory subject at the school.
“Since June, there has not been a teacher able to teach maths,” Mxobo said.
“My child failed and it is not because he is not smart. It’s because there is no teacher.
“When we received the reports for the third term everyone cried.
“We couldn’t believe that all our children had failed maths.
“We couldn’t believe it and there was no-one to sort it out.”
Another parent, Myrtle Williams, said she was at her wits’ end.
“It’s been months now since we’ve had a dedicated maths teacher and the shocking part is everyone knows about it yet nothing is being done.
“My three kids are all struggling in maths. They’ve failed their exams and their grades are plummeting.
“I’ve tried to help them at home, but it’s just not the same.
“They need a qualified teacher to guide them, to answer their questions, and to make maths understandable.”
The 50-year-old mother said classrooms were also overcrowded.
“We have about 60 kids in one class.”
Another parent, who declined to be named, said she now had to fork out money for a private tutor.
“My child cannot afford to fail maths again this term,” the 46-year-old mother said.
“It’s costing me an arm and a leg just to get my child to pass this term.”
Williams said she felt hopeless.
“I feel like I’m being taken for a ride. I’m paying school fees, I’m sending my kids to school and I expect them to receive a quality education.
“Instead, it’s like a slap in the face. It’s a disgrace.
“I’m calling on the district and the education department to take this issue seriously.
“Our children deserve better.
“They deserve to have a maths teacher.
“They deserve to have a chance at a bright future.
“It’s time to stop making excuses and start taking action.”
Dada said the crisis engulfing the school needed to be understood in the context of the myriad issues facing the nation such as mass unemployment, crumbling social and economic infrastructure, and violence.
He said what was happening at Clarkson highlighted the impact of austerity measures on the education sector, including overcrowded classrooms, a lack of support personnel and the inability to fill vacant teaching and management positions.
“This has been widely reported in various provinces such as in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
“We are concerned that those who have designed and are implementing the austerity programme are not affected by it because their families are not using public services.”
National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA executive director Basil Manuel said it was a shame that the school had been failed by education bosses.
“It is a shame because it [department] failed to appoint an acting principal, it failed to appoint an acting deputy principal, and it failed to get a maths teacher on board,” Manuel said.
“We call on the department to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
AfriForum’s head of education, Alana Bailey, said: “It is a matter of great concern that the school has reached this level of dysfunctionality that the learners are already in grade 5 now failing maths in a school that isn’t properly governed.
“It’s essential that urgent steps be taken to address the situation.
“The kids will never catch up because the school is dysfunctional.
“It’s robbing them of their future.”
HeraldLIVE
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