Pupils at East Cape school face extraordinary challenges

AT Moshesh Senior Secondary School in the Eastern Cape, learning starts at 4am and ends at 9pm.

It is no ordinary school – but for all the wrong reasons.

In 2012 pupils made public that teachers came to school drunk, the principal had been absent for nine months and pigs made off with their textbooks.

In November last year, non-government organisation Equal Education was granted an order in the Bhisho High Court compelling authorities to take action. About five months down the line, little has improved at the school in Queen's Mercy village.

The rogue principal is gone but is allegedly still on the school's payroll, and so are four other teachers who have left. The school population has grown to 504 but there are only nine teachers. They need teachers for eight subjects, including mathematics and physical science.

These allegations are contained in a letter from Equal Education Law Centre to the state attorney. It lists the Education Department's failure to comply with the court order and paints a grim picture of conditions.

Among the steps that had to be taken by the department was the deployment of "guru teachers" to assist teachers and discuss best practice in planning, methodology and assessment.

The gurus are allegedly yet to land.

Pupils are taught for three periods in the 17-hour school day – most are forced to wait for hours for a lesson. And because there is a shortage of textbooks, they cannot even "self- teach".

"Such commitment by the educators and learners is commendable but the department must do its part in supporting this school. At the moment the provincial department is doing nothing at all," Precillar Moyo, from the NGO, said in the letter.

Telile Manyokole, 20, is in matric.

The mother of a six-year-old, she said the shortage of textbooks was crippling.

"We are 10 pupils from four villages who have to share one textbook," she said.

When asked how they managed her friend, Mpho Mapheelle, replied: "We suffer."

Mapheelle, 20, is also in matric. Both of them want to study to become accountants.

Because of all the problems, finishing high school can take years in some cases. There are even pupils close to 30 years old.

Leweshe Ramoeletsi, 27, matriculated in 2008. Back then things were as bad.

"The principal was our English teacher and would come to school drunk. We could not understand what he said. And when we asked for clarity, he would beat us on our genitals," Ramoeletsi, who is now a community activist, said.

He said there was a private school with more than 1000 pupils in the same village. Fees were about R6900 a year.

The private school does not have a pool or even a sports field. What makes it special is that there are enough teachers, textbooks and working computers.

"Parents who can afford it try their best to send their children there," Ramoeletsi said.

The NGO has given the Education Department until today to address the challenges at Moshesh.

"Villagers are mostly unemployed. They survive on grants. It is a poor society, a forgotten community," Equal Education's community development department head Lumkile Zani said.

"Learners are demotivated and have no hope. The same goes for teachers."

Many matric pupils said they would probably not pass this year. - Nashira Davids