Food crisis to close Kagiso Senior
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday March 1, 2016 18:00
Yesterday, South East District councillors at their first full council meeting demanded that the Education Ministry close the school temporarily or urgently resolve the food crisis.
The local authority sent a delegation of five councillors to go and assess the situation at the school and give feedback today, Tuesday.
The crisis at the senior school came to the fore after one councillor, Kgabo Mabotseng, interrupted the set agenda and asked that the local authority address the matter.
“Council chairperson, there is a crisis at Kagiso Senior Secondary School. Students have been attending classes without food for days, I don’t see why this council should continue with its business when we have a bigger problem.”
“I want the Education Secretary and District Commissioner to explain to this house about the food shortage at Kagiso.
“I was told last Thursday and rushed there. The situation is bad,” Mabotseng said.
He said the fact that Kagiso was a boarding school with students from different parts of the country, exacerbated the situation.
“Ga re bate strike mo Ramotswa gape. Seemo se, ha se sa tsibogelwe ka bonako re ya go felela re tshwere bothata bana ba gana go ya di classing. (We don’t want another strike in Ramotswa. This situation, if not urgently attended to, would result in students refusing to attend classes),” he said.
Another councillor Dilo Abram asked why the school management decided to enrol new Form 4 students without first resolving the food crisis.
“Before the enrolment was done, why didn’t the school inform the Ministry that they do not have enough food to cater for form 4 students? It seems this issue is not being treated seriously because the ministry was informed about it last week but nothing has been done yet,” he said.
Another councillor, Dichabe Seitshiro said it was imperative that the local authority be updated on the troubles at Kagiso as soon as possible.
“Imagine the school has more than 800 students, but there is no food. We understand day scholars are told to go and eat at home,” he said.
District Commissioner, Ian Tema told the full council that while he was unaware of the situation as he had been away, he was informed that there was underfunding of food provisions for children in the area.
Chief Education Secretary, Moses Tshetlhana told councillors that supplies for the children were meagre.
“As everyone knows, students are supposed to eat three times a day but that is not the case because our food is too little.
“The Ministry has promised to give us P50,000 but the money is not going to be enough. “The challenge is that the financial year begins in April.
“We are expecting that money to be released anytime today. The day scholars are released to go and eat at their homes so that food can be enough for boarders,” he said.