ANOTHER MOBILE CLASSROOM SET ALIGHT AT BLYDEVILLE

The North West Education MEC, Mmaphefo Matsemela was shocked and dismayed by the burning of a mobile classroom at Rekgonne Secondary School in Blydeville Township near Lichtenburg on Monday, 06 August 2019.

It is alleged that a mobile classroom used as an administration block by the school in the early hours on the same day was found burnt down to ashes by the community. At the moment the cause of fire is still unknown.

Materials that were lost in the fire include stationery, textbooks, teacher’s files, preparation books, school stamp, 2020 school applications, learners’ tasks, sports attire and cleaning materials.

Rekgonne Secondary is a new school which started operating in January 2017 with 141 Grade 8 learners. It started with four mobile classrooms and one was used as a staffroom and storeroom. Extra mobile classrooms were delivered when Grade 9 was added in 2018. Again on 22 July 2019, another mobile classroom was burnt down by the unknown people at the same school.

The North West Education MEC, Mmaphefo Matsemela who was extremely disappointed by the incident appealed to the community members to expose the culprits.

“I am extremely disappointed by the horrible and barbaric incident of burning mobile classrooms in the area of Blydeville. This act of burning and destroying the school property is literally taking our province behind in terms of addressing infrastructure challenges at our schools. This was a temporary measure since there are plans to build a new school in that area and I wish to appeal to all community members to come forward and report culprits who burn schools to the police”, said MEC Matsemela.

Teaching and learning has been highly affected by the incident and the School Governing Body has called for an urgent parents meeting on Friday, 09 August 2019.