ABOUT 200 OWING OVCS SENT HOME

MBABANE – About 200 orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) have been sent home for owing school fees at Mpolonjeni High School.
The pupils were sent packing by the head teacher of the school identified as Mrs Tfwala who demanded that they pay top-up fees which ranged around E800 and E900.

Government has not remitted OVC funds to the school. It has been almost two weeks now since the pupils were sent home by the school administration and guardians are not happy that the children are missing out on schoolwork.
In an interview with some of the guardians, they expressed their frustration over the matter, adding that raising the funds was a difficult task due to their poverty-stricken background as most of them were unemployed.

They said they needed time to raise the funds but would appreciate if the head teacher would be lenient with them and consider their backgrounds.

Instalments

“It is not that we do not want to pay the money, but it is the timeframe we are concerned about and that the children are missing out in class,” the guardians said.
According to the guardians, the head teacher was not being reasonable and was ill-treating them and their children. They further said sending the pupils home was not a solution as they would be paying the money as soon as they had it. “What hurts us the most is the fact that the pupils are missing out and this could jeopardise their future,” they said. 

The guardians said it would be proper for the school to allow the pupils to continue learning until they raised the much needed funds. Further, they said they were worried about the head teacher’s behaviour, as she refused them the opportunity to pay in instalments but instead demanded a lump sum. They argued that they had more than one child each enrolled at the school and they could not afford paying such huge amounts. Further, they argued that the top-up fees were not standard, something that also concerned them.

Meanwhile, other parents raised concerns that their children’s reports were withheld by the school for failure to pay E20 towards the farewell function of a retiring teacher in December last year. Responding to the concerns, Tfwala said there was no free education in high school. She said government paid late for the pupils yet they needed to learn. “We do not issue out books without payment being made. This is the policy of the school which was supported by the parents themselves,” said Tfwala.

She said all the pupils who were sent home had guardians who had the responsibility to pay for them. “This is just a fraction of the funds and guardians need to be responsible and play their role,” she stated.  Director of Social Welfare in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, Moses Dlamini, said they were concerned by the schools that demanded top-up fees from the OVCs who were government’s responsibility. Dlamini said it was difficult for the guardians of the pupils to raise money, especially because most of them were disadvantaged.
He said most of the head teachers did as they pleased in the schools, which was a cause for concern.

Information

Dlamini said as the Deputy Prime Minister’s (DPM) Office, they were of the view that admissions in the country should be centralised and controlled by the Ministry of Education and Training. This, he said would take away powers from the head teachers who then abused them and wanted to be worshipped. “Duties and responsibilities of teachers are to educate the child and not to be worshipped,” said the director.

He said in South Africa, education was centralised and teachers only taught the children in class. Lubombo Regional Education Officer (REO) Musa Mthupha said it was wrong for the school to send pupils home, as government would pay the money. Mthupha said there were no top-up fees required for high schools, but funds charged for all pupils entering into the school.

He said if pupils were not in class, they missed out and had no way of catching up on the information they had already missed. The REO said he had not yet received the report from Mpolonjeni High but would follow-up to find out what was happening. Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training Bertram Stewart said normally when a school had challenges, they received reports from REOs and not the print media.

Stewart said in the reporting structure of the ministry, the media was not involved. “I am waiting for the REO’s report as they did on a weekly basis,” he said.

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