Tag: Roodepoort Primary School

Coloured parents have no faith in Roodepoort task team

Parents and pupils of Davidsonville vowed to forcibly reopen Roodepoort Primary School on Monday morning.

“I am going to use bolt cutters to open this school. We are going to open it with force,” Jerome Lottering from the Davidsonville Community Forum told News24 outside the school.

Parents and a group of around 40 couloured pupils in their purple uniforms had gathered outside the gates of the school.

Several police vehicles were parked nearby.

Lottering said a mediation task team appointed by the Gauteng education department to find solutions for the school following its closure, was ineffective.

The school was temporarily closed just over two weeks ago.

In the interim, some coloured pupils were moved to Lufhereng Primary School, a black school in Soweto.

Coloured residents claimed their problems with the school centred on the allegedly “corrupt” appointment of the school’s principal and her deputies, and not that the principal was black.

“We are not going to wait for that mediation team. They told us yesterday to give them some time,” Lottering said, but added that it was the third time the team had promised to tell parents about their proposed solutions.

“We have no faith in this team. They have given us no definitive answer,” he said.

Source: News24

Chaos as coloureds refuse black school

Amid racial divisions between coloureds and blacks that resulted in government officials shutting down Roodepoort Primary school, one coloured community member was shot with a rubber bullet and was taken to hospital.

Before the pupils were transported to school, coloured parents shouted the “k” word at the black police telling them to bring back their children. The angry coloured community protested outside the school overpowering the police.

The police resorted to rubber bullets to try calm the situation. One man was injured in the process.

On Tuesday morning no teachers remained at the school as they were served with letters yesterday for continuing to teach while Gauteng Premier David Makhura had instructed the teachers to move to another school.

At least five people were injured on Tuesday morning during protests at the school. ER24 paramedics arrived on the scene and found a number of public on the scene as well as heavy SAPS presence.

On assessment, paramedics found that at least five people had sustained injuries due to what was reported to paramedics as rubber bullets.

Amid clashes between the community of Davidsonville and the Gauteng Education department to reopen Roodepoort Primary school, only about a hundred boarded the bus to go to Lufhereng Primary school.

On Wednesday morning, it looked like only few black learners were going to the school which the department had arranged for them to be taught at while the impasse between the community and the department is being resolved.

Economic Freedom Fighters provincial secretary Malesela Ledwaba addressed the community saying the party was in support of the call to reopen the school. Malesela also said the party had tried to contact the office of the MEC Panyaza Lesufi asking to be included in the mediation team to resolve the problems at the school.

The school houses over 1 300 learners but many coloured pupils were not at the school, but were seen among the community during the gathering. The community said they would not allow their children to go to a black school.

Source: The Citizen