The principal of Jubilee Park Primary School, Jonathan Young and Ward 48 Councillor,
Franay van der Linde call on the community and local businesses to assist in their efforts to curb the ongoing vandalism and damage to property experienced by the school.
“We do have running toilets. We fixed a few toilets and electrical damage caused by the
thieves so that we do have functional ablution facilities in the office block for educators.
However, we run the risk of those efforts being in vain as they might return for the fixed toilets. We have over 1 000 learners, so we need functional toilets,” he added.
It is alleged that the issue has been ongoing since last year. The vandalism ranges from stolen electrical wires to stolen copper pipes. Now that the school is aware and trying to curb the issue, toilet doors have become the hot commodity for perpetrators.
Young explained that there is a voluntary security guard provided by the Department of Education under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), present at the school.
However, the school’s perimeter is too big for one security guard. Sometimes, the criminals make a noise on one side of the school to draw the security guard to one side as they enter the school by jumping the fence on the other side.
The criminals take whatever they can find at the newly built school, like copper pipes, electrical wires and the toilet doors. This damage to property has resulted in two of the four blocks of toilets being unusable. The vandals broke through the ceiling to rip out all electrical wiring connected to the toilets as well as the school’s cafeteria facilities. They have also stolen a week’s food supply that was intended to feed the learners. They also stole the gas line pipe that connects the gas banisters to the stoves, which has caused disruption in the kitchen as staff have to use portable gas stoves to cook for the learners.
“To curb this issue, I want to secure the school before we fix the damage caused so that the same issue doesn’t happen again,” Young said.
He mentioned that the school is ‘too open,’ and he wants to close off the access points of the school building. The property is large and closing off these access points will assist the security guards a great deal when doing their patrols around the school.
“There are a lot of access points to the school building that make it easy for criminals to vandalise. I believe that if we close these access points down, it won’t stop the vandalism, but it will limit it,” Young said.
The Ward 48 Councillor, under which the school falls , Franay Van Der Linde, said that she has spoken with SAPS to curb the situation by requesting that a vehicle patrol the school, and she said that the police monitor the school should there be a vehicle available to assist the nighttime security.
“I will also have discussions with Ward Councillors that live around the area to assist in asking the community to be vigilant of what is happening in their area, especially during the night if they can,” said Van Der Linde.
She added that it is not only Jubilee Park Primary School that is experiencing this vandalism.
She said that all the schools in Ward 48 are being targeted.
