HEAD SAID SELL DAGGA FOR FEES – PARENTS

KAZONDWAKO – “Sell marijuana to pay school fees.”These are words reportedly uttered by Sikanye (Ka-Zondwako) High School Head teacher Stanley Matsebula to parents who complained about the school fees being too high for a school in the rural areas.

The parents, in separate interviews, narrated that they were allegedly told by Matsebula to sell marijuana to make money so they could fund their children’s school fees. In an interview, Matsebula repeated these words cementing the allegations made by the parents.

Narrating how they got to the point of being told to sell dagga to fund their children’s school fees, parents said they had enquired about the school’s decision to hike fees for the 2019 academic year.  The decision was reportedly taken without their involvement and without furnishing them with last year’s financial report.

Shock

Parents interviewed earlier this week expressed their shock after they learnt that school fees had been hiked for this academic year. They narrated that the school fees hike had more impact on orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) as under the new fees plan, those in Form I had to pay about E1 401 more than what was paid at the school last year.

The parents narrated that last year OVC guardians paid about E1 500 as top-up fees while government paid about E1 950. According to the school’s 2019 fees plan, guardians have to pay E2 901 for pupils in Form I. This figure is lower for the higher grades with the least paid being E2 594 by those in Form IV.

Protect

It should be noted that the names of interviewed parents are known  to this publication but will not be revealed to protect the identities of the minors.
*Ruth, an elderly woman whose grandchild is a pupil at Sikanye High School, narrated that she was reportedly told to sell ‘spinach’ so to be able to pay school fees for the learner.

She clarified that ‘spinach’ was a word commonly used in the community to refer to dagga. She said she was also told that she should sell handicraft so she could make enough money to pay the fees. Ruth narrated that what pained her was that the school was literally a creation of their own hands as they did manual labour when it was built.

She narrated how she dug the foundation with the hope that the school would one day help her grandchildren and future generations to come. She narrated that the school was proving to become rather too expensive for them as unemployed people from the rural area. “Where will we get this money from?” Ruth asked in a sombre tone.

Ruth was concerned that due to the high fees they had to pay at the school, some parents moved their children to other schools which were a bit far from their community. Her concern was that as parents and guardians, they did not always have money which resulted in their children having to walk to their  respective schools.

*Not real names.

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