SOME of the principals from OR Tambo Coastal, which falls under the OR Tambo District Municipality, marched to the KD Building in Mthatha, last week, to hand over a petition demanding that the Department of Education should hire clerks for their schools.
One of the principals, Yolisa Mpathane, said they had organised this march together with the members of their school governing bodies (SGBs).
Mpathane said the main problem is that they do not have clerks in their schools, and this creates more work for them as teachers because they are forced to teach learners and do administration at the same time.
“Some of our neighbouring schools have clerks; that is why we are asking the reason from the department because we are doing the same work like other schools, then why are we isolated?
“We used to have clerks, who were interns in our schools but their contracts ended on March 31,” said Mpathane. She added that they had written several letters to the district director, Dr Bongie Peyana, and he had allegedly promised them that the post would be advertised on June 30, but until now that never happened.
She said that this had led to some of them withholding their schedules for the third term, because they did not have clerks.
“We did not submit our schedules for the third term because of this problem. If the department fails to meet our demands or to give us a positive response, we are still not going to submit schedules for this term. This means that learners will not receive their final reports.”
She claimed that they had followed all the channels, including speaking to the national and provincial departments, asking these offices to intervene, but they never get help.
She confirmed that they had given the department five days to respond to their grievances.
Mpathane said their five days ends today (Thursday); they will meet again tomorrow to discuss the way forward.
One of the SGB chairpersons, Mxolisi Mangaliso, from Mqokolweni Primary School, in Mthatha, said they wanted the department to employ clerks because otherwise their children will not get reports.
“Some of the schools in our areas are having clerks.
“The question is, what have we done to deserve this treatment from our department?” asked Mangaliso.
He added that he could not blame principals for withholding schedules because they feel overloaded.
“The duty of the teachers is to teach learners, not to do work that is supposed to be done by other people.”
Education Department spokesperson, Malibongwe Mtima, said he had spoken to Peyana, and they were aware of the issue seemingly affecting schools which have fewer than 100 children.
“Seemingly it’s from the norms and standards not to give them clerks if the school has fewer than 100 children,” said Mtima.
