The Phumzile Primary School in North of Soshanguve, Block H has experienced safety woes since 2014. The school is concerned about the safety of their tender aged learners who range from grade one to seven.
The school’s poor infrastructure, particularly the old falling fence has been and still remains a worry for the school as well as the parents of the learners. The school has been exposed to a number of burglaries because of easy access for the criminals.
“We have been fighting to solve the fence issue for years now. A number of times, we’ve been in contact with the Department of Education, being sent from one person to another, and till today there hasn’t been efforts to put up a new fence for the school,” Mr David Chauke, former SGB chairperson and initiator of the fence project, said.
It is alleged that the Department of Education sent workers to the school to put up a cheap, razor fence. The attempt did not succeed as the workers were stopped by the community leaders. Since then, there’s never been any means by the Department of Basic Education to fix the fence.
Parents also expressed their concerns during a school meeting about the dangers of a razor fence around small children, saying it will injure children.
“I don’t understand why the other parents did not want the razor fence put up because our children are in danger of being exposed to criminals and strangers passing by and the learners themselves jump the fence during school hours. It would’ve been better than nothing,” Martha Zwane, a grandparent to a Phumzile Primary School learner, said.
The former SGB member further expressed his concerns.
“It puzzles me that the Department has moved to a new project such as the E-Board while schools like Phumzile are suffering from just getting a proper secure fence or wall to protect children,” he said.
Several attempts to contact the Tshwane North District failed at the time of publication.