Mud schools mess

The Eastern Cape provincial government has again pushed back the deadline for eradicating mud schools – to 2022. Mud schools should have been eradicated nationally by November 2016.

City Press has been reporting for many years on the plight of learners in the province who are being taught in mud structures. Take a look:

• Broken promises, broken dreams

It has been 13 years since the provincial education department promised to build the pupils of Dingana Junior Primary School outside Lusikisiki a proper school, but so far it has only built two sets of toilets, leaving hundreds of small children studying in a dilapidated and dangerous mud structure.

• Collapsing mud school a danger
  

Inga Gogela and her fellow Grade 10 pupils are taught in the mud block of their school. Sticks protrude from the classroom walls like the ribcage of a malnourished greyhound. Storms have battered the mud walls. Gaping holes in them serve as ventilation on hot summer days, but are a curse on windy, rainy days and in winter.

• 128 pupils squashed into class
  

At Nyangilizwe Senior Secondary in Libode, pupils take turns standing guard for friends outside broken toilets with no doors. At the nearby Ntapane Senior Secondary, the average class size is more than 120 pupils – eight of whom cram together at desks designed for three.

Read the full package here.