Note to editors: Please find the attached English soundbite by Sergio Isa Dos Santos MPL.
Severe overcrowding in Gauteng schools has created an environment not conducive to learning and teaching. This follows a viral TikTok video featuring a teacher discussing her struggles managing a class of 53 learners without adequate tables and chairs.
See the full TikTok video here.
This predicament was also discovered by the DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Education, Sergio Isa dos Santos MPL, when conducting an oversight inspection to assess the situation at Randvaal Primary School in Sedibeng. He found that there are 53 learners in a single classroom. This school is in desperate need of additional infrastructure, including four additional classrooms and enhanced ablution facilities. Furthermore, the school requires two additional posts to ensure adequate staffing.
The DA Gauteng reiterates its call for the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) to take immediate action by providing additional mobile classrooms and essential resources to address the overcrowding crisis in our schools throughout the province.
DA MPL, Sergio Dos Santos, has already written to the GDE to inquire about the status of the 4,000 satellite schools that the department promised to alleviate overcrowding in Gauteng’s public schools. We are currently awaiting a response.
Dos Santos demands to know why this promise has not translated into real action and change to rescue our children who are compelled to learn in such difficult conditions.
The DA Gauteng remains committed to ensuring that no learner has to endure the harshness of learning in an overcrowded classroom where their chances to succeed are at risk.