Yesterday, this newspaper carried a disturbing report about two no-fee-paying schools in northern Pretoria that denied pupils stationery because their parents had failed to pay a R50 donation.
The schools in Mabopane ordered parents who failed to pitch for the cleaning of their facilities in preparation for reopening last week to fork out a R50 “once off donation”. The result of this has been that pupils whose parents could not pay were then apparently denied stationery by their teachers in order to force the parents to comply.
There is an argument to be made about the responsibility that lies with communities and parents to ensure that they preserve, protect and maintain their school infrastructure for the future of their children.
Parents must play an important role in the process of improving conditions of schools around them. Therefore, the idea of getting parents involved in the affairs of the school, including cleaning and taking care of the infrastructure, is a noble one and a civic responsibility.
However, this noble idea, in the case of the two schools, was taken too far by seeking to punish pupils for the “sins of their parents”. Schools have a constitutional obligation to ensure that the best interests of children are paramount, including their right to basic education.
The two schools ought to have placed the best interests of the pupils ahead of their own to get compliance with the payment of the R50 donation. As we have seen, this, in many instances where some private schools withhold children’s results due to non-payment of fees by their parents, the decision has a profound effect on the children.
They suffer humiliation, victimisation and violation of their basic constitutional right to education through no fault of their own. This practice of coercing parents into submission by making children suffer has no place in our public education system. It must end.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.