Parents Demand Safe Learning As Gauteng MEC Promises New School After Alra Park Shutdown

Gauteng MEC for Education Matome Chiloane promised parents a new school. Photos: Kimberly Mutandiro / GroundUp

• Parents shut down Alra Park Primary School in Nigel for almost a month after futile attempts to get the school renovated.
• The old school was closed for health and safety reasons in 2022 and children were moved to mobile classrooms.
• But now, parents and staff say, the mobile classrooms are also in poor condition.
• After the shutdown, Gauteng education MEC Matome Chiloane visited the school and promised a new school would be built within 18 months.

Parents who shut down a Nigel primary school for almost a month because of concerns about health and safety have been promised a new school by the Gauteng MEC for Education.

Learners at Alra Park Primary School have not attended school for weeks.

Parents closed the 85-year-old school because they say it is unsafe.

Last month community members protested, demanding the school be fixed. The protest ended with rubber bullets being fired, and some protesters arrested but later released.

According to the School Governing Board (SGB) and the Alra-Park Primary School Infrastructure Crisis Committee, children were moved to mobile classrooms in 2022 when the old school buildings were deemed unsafe by the Department of Education.

But now the mobile classrooms are also in poor condition, with leaking roofs, no railings on stairs, and no electricity. The classrooms are on a dusty piece of land and parents say the children have nowhere to eat or play except in the dust.

Chairperson of the Alra-Park Primary School Infrastructure Crisis Committee Fareed Mohammed said the department had made promises to build a proper school for the children but had not done so.

At a meeting of the committee, parents and SGB members on Sunday, 31 August, it was decided that children should not resume classes until the the department had built paving, verandahs, and eating areas, and installed electricity in the classrooms.

Parent Stoffel Van Heerden said he attended the school in 1977, and now, more than 30 years later, he has seen no development except for the mobile classrooms. “We want the department to give us a new school or refurbish the school, because we want what’s best for our children,” he said.

SGB member Dominic Magalhaes said there were 30 mobile classrooms with 50 learners in each class. He said the education department had said there was a R13m budget to fix the old school buildings but nothing had been done.

“The department promised us a state-of-the-art school, but nothing has happened.”

On Monday 1 September, MEC for Education in Gauteng, Matome Chiloane, visited the school with district officials and engineers.

Chiloane promised to build a new school in the next 18 months. He said it would be more cost-effective to build a new school than to renovate the old school. Meanwhile, he promised, work to fix mobile classes and put down paving would start immediately to allow children to start returning to school.

“The school was already part of the roster of new schools, and this school is more urgent than others,” he said.

This article was originally published on GroundUp.

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