Mud classrooms crumble while building materials sit on site

Collapsing walls and broken windows offer little protection from the elements for primary school children in Qombolo, Eastern Cape. Photo: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik

• Broken windows and collapsing walls have primary school children shivering through classes.
• There are no answers from the Eastern Cape Department of Education, despite appointing a contractor in 2017.
• Two grades have to share a classroom, with no other schooling options in the area.

Six years since a contractor was paid to build prefab classrooms, learners at Kulo-Mbombo Primary School in Qombolo, Eastern Cape, are still being taught in crumbling mud buildings.

Meanwhile, the materials for the prefab classrooms, along with a shipping container, have been sitting on the school grounds. School Governing Body chairperson Nakind Matyisi said the contractor dropped them off there in 2017 with promises to return a week later.

Eastern Cape Department of Education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima, who would not provide the name of the contractor, said the new classrooms were part of the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) established to eradicate the backlog of Basic Safety Norms in schools.

Currently, the school’s 90 learners attending grade R to grade 7, are accommodated in two mud huts, which were built by parents in 1976, and two concrete block classrooms later built by the state. Each classroom has to accommodate two grades, with one of the concrete block classrooms also being used to house the kitchen.

Matyisi said the parents originally built the school as there was no primary school in the village.

Matyisi said storms destroyed the original mud buildings. “If I’m not mistaken it was before 2012.” He said the department was told about the situation and the parents rebuilt the mud huts while waiting for proper classrooms to be built.

He said around 2015 they were told proper classrooms had been approved. When the contractor arrived with building materials two years later, they were very happy.

“Women ululating, children running around. The whole village was so happy. On our dusty streets we were talking about these new classrooms and how they are going to help our children.

“What we didn’t know was that we will have to guard the material for six years.”

Building material for new prefab classrooms were delivered by a contractor in 2017. The contractor never returned, and the school has had to guard the materials ever since. Photo: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik

He said they had travelled to the department’s offices in Butterworth numerous times to get answers.

“At this stage we don’t know what happened to the contractor and why they left their material here if they are not going to build us classrooms. The department officials used to promise us that they will find the contractor but now they are singing a different tune saying there’s no budget to build the school.”

A teacher who asked not to be named as she didn’t have permission to speak to the media, took GroundUp into the mud classroom shared by grade 2 and grade 3 learners.

There was a large hole in one wall, the roof was old and leaked, and some windows were broken.

“My children are always freezing.” they said. “Prefabs were going to help a lot. Unfortunately, by the look of things we might not get them.”

They said despite the conditions, the learners were “hungry for education”.

“They don’t miss a day no matter how cold it is,” they said.

The only other schooling options for those in the area is for the children to walk the approximately 15km to the primary school in the next village, or go to boarding school, but that was unaffordable for most parents.

“They are stuck here,” said the teacher.

SGB member Nolisten Fose said the people who originally built the school are now pensioners and reliant on social grants.

“We can’t afford to build another school,” said Fose. She said they thought of building more mud classrooms but realised that with increasingly violent storms brought by climate change, they would just be destroyed.

Mtima said the department intends to close the school, and is looking to see which nearby school can accommodate the children.

However, the nearest primary school is in Nombaanjane village, about 15km on bad roads.

Mtima said the department was planning to terminate the contract for the prefab classrooms due to failure of delivery.

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