Over 20 teachers strike over books

This was one of the worst performing schools last year as it had 41 failures and 47 thirds among their 110 pupils who sat for the exams. This term the teachers have decided to nip their problems in the bud.

The teachers resolved in a meeting held last Friday that they would not work unless their complaints were attended to. One major grievance they have is the lack of working material.

The teachers were found resting under the shade of a tree behind the classrooms while pupils were making a lot of noise while peeping through the windows.

The Principal, Johannes Shongwe, went from classroom to classroom in an attempt to maintain order.

According to the teachers, the pupils had not been given any stationery which made it hard for them to work.

They said what irked them even more was that the stationery was at Siphofaneni, which is a few kilometres from the school.

"A lot of schools fetched their stationery during the school holidays as government released it early to avoid the delays," alleged one of the teachers.

They claimed that Shongwe only noticed how serious they were yesterday when he saw that they were not going to class. It was only then that a truck to fetch the government sponsored stationery was organised.

The teachers claimed the school’s poor performance in the recent external examination was also the main reason behind their sit-in-strike.

They said they had to do something about the delays in the beginning of the year as the parents blamed them for the poor results.

"For the past two weeks we have been doing nothing, we had turned into babysitters instead of teachers," commented one teacher.

The teachers also complained of the lack of water, furniture, and teachers’ toilets.

Shongwe denied that there was trouble at the school. He said the delay in getting the stationery was because it rained last week and the road was slippery so the truck could not travel.

"The truck today (yesterday) will be delivering the last load of books and they will be distributed as soon as possible," he said.

He said he was trying to sort out the other issues.

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