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The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo calls on the MEC for Education, Polly Boshielo, and the department to meet with the Dibeng Village community to urgently find an amicable solution for the Dibeng Primary School learners.

This comes after parents in the community destroyed the dilapidated school and built shacks as they felt these were safer than the pre-existing buildings. Learners now attend classes in these shacks.

The DA believes that although the school was deemed unsafe by the community, the demolition of the school may further affect the progress of learners in this already difficult academic year.

While the action of demolishing the school was extreme and cannot be condoned, it highlights the plight of a community that felt ignored by the department and that they had no other recourse other than to build shacks.

The relocation of the learners to another school nearby will improve the learner conditions for now, but there needs to be a workable long-term solution to address the school infrastructure in that area.

Limpopo has had a historical challenge of school infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance backlogs that would cost in excess of R20 billion to eradicate. The department’s slow pace to address this issue was bound to result in such incidents.

While we acknowledge that the department’s finances has been severely affected by budget cuts, we call on MEC Boshielo and her department to engage the community and settle on a long-term solution for these learners.

The DA believes that school infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance need to be prioritised to ensure conducive learning environments for our learners.

Issued by The DA