Advocate and Commissioner at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), Bokankatla Malatji, says during his visit to the school last week, concerns raised by management and staff reveal the special needs school is operating without assistant teachers, which are mandatory at such a school, and learners living at the dilapidated hostel are forced to fetch water in buckets due to a poor network of water pipes. Malatji says the school blames the non-filling of vacant posts on the Free State Education Department and the ailing infrastructure on the Provincial Public Works Department’s lack of cooperation.

The Commissioner, who oversees the department focused on the rights of the disabled and the elderly, says the SAHRC is “afraid children might not be getting the same level of education as other children in other special needs schools”. They are further deeply perturbed by the infrastructure at the school finding it “unacceptable that learners have to fetch water in buckets”.

This special needs school has in the past been brought to a complete standstill by irate learners. In 2014, protesting pupils torched the admin building in protests over a fence separating hostels at the school. 

In 2016, classes were suspended at the school in question as learners embarked on protest action alleging the school was mismanaged, and that blind learners were being given preferential treatment over learners with other disabilities. The learners further alleged ill-equipped teachers were being appointed at the school.

OFM News