Mpumalanga education MEC Lettie Masina has politely—yet firmly—turned down pleas from parents who say their children go hungry during afternoon classes meant to push the province’s matric pass rate above 80%.
Masina responded to complaints during the Taking Legislature to the People event in Piet Retief, within the Victor Khanye local municipality, about learners being left drained after long hours of extra tuition.
Masina said: “The Victor Khanye residents are saying to us, ‘we see what the department is doing, feeding our children during school hours. The challenge is that the department requires our children to achieve performance levels above 80%. Our children then want to sit for extra classes, but you [the government] don’t [provide] them with food during those extra classes’.”
In her response, she said: “We don’t have that allocation now, but we can ask parents and community members to work with us.
“I usually say that education is not a responsibility of the department alone; everyone should get involved.
“Whether you have a child at school or not, we are asking for contributions just to make sure that children are fed after hours.”
Special needs school
Her response coincides with the province’s ongoing efforts to resolve a series of scandals associated with the school nutrition programme, ranging from irregularities in tendering to safety lapses that have plagued the department for more than 10 years.
But Masina was not done breaking terrible news. She was equally candid when the residents called for a special needs school, directing them to Emalahleni, which is 230km away.
“The residents of Victor Khanye have stated that they don’t have a single special school. Now, we want to tell you that as a department, we are in the process of constructing a special school in the Emalahleni local municipality, but it will be a boarding school facility that will allow all children with special needs in Mpumalanga,” she said.
Masina added that the province already has 18 such schools.
“So, we can’t build a special school here, but it will be in Emalahleni. It will accommodate any child with special needs.
“Mainly, our boarding schools are free, and the children won’t have to pay a cent to be accommodated there.”
