Mogadime parents’ revolt against schools’ merger plan

Moeding

Parents of Mogadime Secondary School pupils in Moeding Village, Ephraim Mogale Local Municipality (EPMLM), are outraged over the merging of the school with Ngwana Mashile Secondary School, which is located in Mohlalaotwane Village about 20kms from Moeding.

The re-aligning of the schools was announced by the Limpopo Department of Education in August last year, citing low enrolment and poor matric results at Mogadime Secondary.

The merger announcement caused discomfort among parents and community members who say the school is iconic and bears historic memories to the villagers.

During the meetings that were convened to discuss the re-alignment, parents and residents disputed the schools’ merger resulting in the expulsion of the school principal by the disgruntled community.

Earlier this year, the Education Department informed parents that the schools’ re-alignment was processed and will be finalized as soon as the department allocate buses to ferry pupils from Mogadime to Ngwana Mashile.

In a meeting held on Friday 9 August 2024 at Mogadime Secondary, representatives from Rakgoadi Circuit informed parents that the scholar transport has been allocated and will start transporting learners to Ngwana Mashile from Monday 12 August 2024.

To raise their disapproval about the merger, on Monday 12 August, a group of angry parents, joined by concerned community members, invaded the school premises early in the morning and turned away the buses. They were demanding their children to continue taking lessons at Mogadime instead of being transported to Ngwana Mashile.

The protest escalated to Tuesday, accompanied by a community unrest and blocking of roads in the entire village.

During the demonstration, residents were demanding the Department of Education to re-open Mogadime Secondary School for teaching and learning. The protesters dispersed after they were addressed by the police.

Since the demonstration started, the majority of Mogadime pupils, including matric learners remained home. A few number of learners have started attending at Mogadime using public transport and other means of scholar transport provided by their parents.

One of the parents, who spoke on anonymity grounds for fear of intimidation, told the publication that the schools’ merger has also caused a division among parents.

“Some of the parents, including myself, want their children to go to Ngwana Mashile because they are already left behind in their studies. We have been concerned of Mogadime because it has a shortage of English and Economics teachers in Grade 12. The matric learners have not attended these subjects since the schools reopen in January,” she said.

Limpopo Department of Education Spokesperson, Mosebjadi Kgafe, said the process that happened at Mogadime Secondary school was not necessarily the merging of the schools but relocation of learners from Mogadime to Ngwana Mashile Secondary School.

“The process was carried out after consultation with parents in September 2023, January 2024 and July 2024 respectively. The process was done with the dwindling in learner enrolment to the extent that the school was left with three educators to teach learners from grade 8 to 12. This resulted with poor performance in all grades,” explained Kgafe.

She added that after parents agreed with the District Director for relocation of learners, they requested that at least scholar transport be provided because of the long distance to Ngwana Mashile.

“The district agreed to provide scholar transport to ferry the learner to the school. Scholar transport was approved, parents were informed that scholar transport will commence on 12 August 2024. However, on 12 August when the bus arrived to ferry learners, there was a group of non-parents that converged at the school to block the bus from ferrying learners. Police were called and no damages or harm was caused,” she said.

 Kgafe indicated that the following day, the same group of non-parents took to the streets and blocked the traffic by burning tyres in the Maserumule Park Road the whole day where the police were there to monitor the situation.

“The department therefore, decided to suspend scholar transport for that week to calm the situation down. Parents took ownership of their children’s education and decided to arrange private transport to ferry their learners to Ngwana Mashile. The district felt to resume scholar transport on the on 19 and 20 August. The department arrange scholar transport and again the very same non-parent group blocked the bus from ferrying learners to school.  The department went to Ngwana Mashile to verify attendance and it was found that learning and teaching was taking place,” informed Kgafe.

She said the department can confirm that there are no learning and teaching disruptions at Ngwana Mashile and only a group of non-parents is instilling fear in parents who care about the future of their children.

“Parents transport initiatives are a clear sign that parents want their children in school learning,” she said.