Johannesburg – Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chilaone has rubbished the DA’s “sensationalist and opportunistic” response after a sinkhole disrupted learning and teaching at Relebogile Secondary School in Khutsong, Carletonville.
This comes after media reports claimed the DA’s education spokesperson Khume Ramulifho was to report Chiloane to the Human Rights Commission for not doing anything to ensure natural disaster did not impact the safety and education of learners at the school.
It has been weeks since part of the school was disappeared into the sinkhole which led to learners leaving their classes, saying it was unsafe. To date, the sinkhole remains unattended to.
Chiloane hit back after the DA said the department was not doing anything to ensure that the sinkhole did not pose a threat to the learners.
“Since February, when the matter came to our attention, several interventions have been undertaken to minimise the impact of the disaster on Relebogile Secondary School learners.
“The first step was to ensure that we protect the lives of all who use the school by immediately stopping classes and evacuating everyone so that we do not put our learners and officials’ lives at risk,” the MEC said.
“We accommodated the learners at a neighbouring school as an interim measure, with their classes taking place between 12pm and 5pm daily,” he said.
Chiloane said the school was working with the district to ensure catch-up programmes for the learners until a solution was found.
“About 28 mobile classrooms have been delivered to an identified site to accommodate the affected learners. Plans are also afoot to finalise water connectivity so that learners can occupy the mobile units as soon as reasonably possible.
“Plans are in progress to accommodate all Grade 12 learners at a camp in due course, with the intention to assist them before their final exams,” the MEC said.
Chiloane also lambasted Ramulifho for deliberately misinterpreting the department’s information on the number of drop-outs in the province.
“To claim that more than 110 000 children dropped out of our schools last year shows how little Ramulifho understands Gauteng’s complex schooling system. Our data shows that the figure he is referring to are learners lost to the system over the past 12 years in total – from 2010 to 2022.
“Those learners are not in the system for various reasons, including among others learners moving to private schools or out of the province; some failed, while others emigrated.
“We will continue to monitor the sinkhole situation and ensure that we provide more support for the learners, as needed.
“We call for patience and urge the community to allow us to implement our interventions,” Chiloane said.
Meanwhile, the Khutsong community said they were living in fear that sinkholes could also threaten their homes.
Current Affairs