SABRINA DEAN – The community in several isolated villages near Kuruman in the Northern Cape is of the opinion that keeping children home from school is the only way to get government to listen.
Kagisho Gaborokwe, deputy chairperson of the Joe Morolong Road Forum, says community protests in the weeks ahead of the July school holiday were the culmination of a battle that has been brewing since 2012 over the state of the roads in the area. He says the learners being kept home from school are among the worst affected by transport problems.
"The children are living in villages, sometimes 10km away from school, there’s no transport," he says.
He says if one goes closer to town, there are buses contracted by Government to transport children to and from school. "At the villages, when they get to school, the children are tired, when they get home from school they are tired. Even when it comes to those who need to tender, the bus owners say the roads are very bad and their buses won’t last," he says.
Some 55 schools that have been closed for several weeks due to protests were supposed to start operating today. Northern Cape Education spokesperson Sydney Stander this morning told Bloemfontein Courant although teachers and officials were present, children had not arrived for school. He could not be reached for comment later in the day.
Meanwhile Northern Cape police spokesperson Andrea Cloete says no incidents were reported today. She says police have been and will continue to monitor the situation as long as necessary to ensure learner safety.
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