The Dispatch this week exposed how children who are now required to attend school far from home face stark choices.
They can try to negotiate an unbearably long, unsafe walk to school or find a place to rent in the village closest to their school.
Either way, they face enormous dangers including rape, trafficking or murder.
It is no small wonder this province is facing declining school enrolment figures in contrast to other provinces where enrolment is increasing.
Behind all this, is the Eastern Cape education department’s School Rationalisation and Realignment Programme (SRRP) plan.
It is supposed to optimise the education system by closing or merging schools with low enrolment to consolidate resources while maintaining children’s educational access.
Last year at an education indaba, the department triumphantly said it had closed more than 1,200 schools between 2017 and 2025.
So there can be no doubt the department seems good at shutting things down.
Sadly, it is not as good at maintaining children’s access to school.
For those who must now attend schools in distant areas, it would require planning — something this department has proven unable to do.
Building hostels at far-away schools or beefing up the utterly useless scholar transport programme seemed to occur to no-one.
It could have been done from the huge financial savings one assumes the department should have garnered by closing more than one-fifth of the schools it once had to support.
It should also have saved on teacher and administrative salaries had it followed its own “redeploy or retrench” plan.
But there have been zero reported retrenchments and redeployment must have failed because there are 5,000 teacher vacancies across the province — the highest in the country.
The only conclusion is that there are hundreds of teachers affected by school closures sitting at home while still earning their salaries.
This publication last week exposed how one teacher has earned her salary and benefits for more than 18 years without once setting foot in a classroom — a terrible indictment indicating inefficiency and waste that the department has been unable to explain.
When the department launched its SSRP, the reassurance was given that it would develop a shining example of an organised education system with equitable distribution of schools and teachers, functioning, safe and reliable school transport, and contented children learning at schools which are secure and fit for purpose. The opposite has happened.
Children, trying against terrible odds to access an education, are made to pay a horrific price.
We should all be ashamed of what is happening to them: most of all, the department charged with fulfilling their unconditional and immediate right to a basic education.
Daily Dispatch
