Ormonde Primary School finally opened for teaching on Monday, January 18, after the School Governing Body (SGB) closed the gates of the newly built school on its official opening day on Wednesday, January 13, due to sanitation problems.
On Tuesday, January 19, the COURIER had a discussion with the SGB chairperson, Teddy Nair, who explained why hundreds of children were sent home on the first day of school. Nair also shared the SGB’s position on the temporary solution the Department of Education and the SGB engineered.
The SGB decided to close the gates because, although construction started in 2014, the school still did not have proper sanitation. According to Nair, this challenge was a result of the school being built on two separate properties – a decision Nair calls ‘working backwards’ as he believes things would have been much better had the Department of Education combined the properties prior to the commencement of construction.
The COURIER visited the school on Tuesday, January 12, a day before the school opened, and learnt that the school did not have electricity and relied on a generator to keep office administration running. Nair considered this to be yet another challenge which was caused by the school being built on two separate properties because this meant the school did not have its own municipal account. As there was no municipal account, it meant that although the school had built toilets and installed taps, they could not be used because there was no municipal drainage system and all the water would flow into the street.
SGB Action
The SGB reported all these challenges on numerous occasions but were unable to find a solution. The school did receive 20 mobile toilets which the SGB did not approve of as the toilet seats were big and they were worried that small learners could fall in them. Another safety concern was that the toilets did not lock from the inside.
Nair told the COURIER that the school was expecting over 700 learners and the toilets would not be able to handle that amount of traffic, especially since the toilets would be serviced once a week, and there was only one person responsible for cleaning them.
GDE action
MEC of Education, Panyaza Lesufi acted swiftly and visited Ormonde Primary School on Wednesday, January 13. After walking around the school, he sat with the SGB and assured them that the department would act to provide a solution so that children could start learning. According to Nair, the mobile toilets were replaced the next day with other acceptable toilets that could flush. A 25 000 litres septic tank was also delivered and the SGB opened the school for learning on Monday, January 18.
Acting spokesperson for the MEC, Oupa Bodibe, said: “The main issue is that the municipality is reluctant to connect bulk infrastructure until the plots of land that the school is built on are consolidated.” The Department of Education is working on combining the two properties as that would be the permanent solution.
SGB’s position
“On Behalf of the SGB, we are happy and accept the solution on a temporary basis. But of course we will be happier with a permanent solution. And we also would like to thank the parents for being supportive of the SGB, and for understanding that we want a permanent solution to the challenges,” said Nair.
The COURIER will keep on following this story until all problems have been solved to the satisfaction of the school’s SGB, parents and learner.
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Ormonde School closes on its first day
