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BROKE SCHOOLS CAN’T COPE, PRINCIPALS CALL MEET

25/09/2020 22:19:00 BY TIMOTHY SIMELANE

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MBABANE – Schools’ expectation to comply with the COVID-19 regulations is affected by acute lack of financial resources to provide necessities for protection against the virus.

Though schools are only open for Grade VII, Form IIIs and Form Vs, an outcry has been sent that they can hardly cope with the high operational expenses, as government has not settled the free primary education (FPE) as well as the orphaned and vulnerable children’s (OVC) fund.

A group of inspectors dispatched by regional education officers allegedly found that some schools were lacking in the checklist of compliance with COVID-19 regulations.

Sources

Eswatini News gathered from reliable sources, who are part of the inspectorate, that some schools did not have a reliable source of running water while in others, the safe social distancing was not practised. However, it was said that the process of inspecting schools was still ongoing.

One of the schools, John Wesley Primary School in Mbabane, had to temporarily send pupils away two weeks ago, as inspectors were not entirely pleased with some compliance essentials.

A group of inspectors met behind closed doors with the school administration to iron out the concerns.

When this newspaper sought to find out the cause of concern, it was revealed that sinks for washing of hands was found to be blocked, such that water supply had to be disconnected, resulting in a temporary non-compliance.

“The COVID-19 rules are strict in that the water has to be running and should not collect in the sink but go directly to the sewerage or to the ground.

“There should be no room for such water to be reused because of the presumption that it could have been used by someone who is COVID-19 positive,” said the source.

The schools’ Head teacher, Norman Gumedze, said a communication breakdown among the school’s administrators was to blame for the temporary disturbance in water supply.

“The issue was all about the responsibility to buy buckets for water storage, but we have fixed it now and learning was interrupted for only a day,” he said.

The primary school had to share the hand washing station with that of the secondary school, and has water tanks for use in case of water shortage.

Issue

Meanwhile, Principal Secretary the Ministry of Education and Training Bertram Stewart, when commenting on the issue, said: “Such cases should be expected because it is obvious that water cannot be in perennial supply. So the shortage of water from time to time is bound to happen.”

He assured that all officials were, however, vigilant to ensure that there was compliance at all times. Later on, Stewart issued an announcement calling upon head teachers to forward lists of pupils supported by the State for payment to the ministry by Tuesday.

These are only those in Form V, Form III and Grade VII

Some of the costly regulations that come with compliance with COVID-19 include having a dedicated person to record temperature, identities and residential addresses of all who enter the schools’ premises, keeping a constant supply of water and buying personal protective equipment where necessary.

Meanwhile, the Eswatini Principals Association (EPA) said it had been inundated with calls from members who were asking it to act on the delays in payment of free primary education fees and for orphaned and vulnerable children.

Welcome Mhlanga, the president, said as a result, the association had scheduled a meeting with its executive to find a solution to the widespread concerns.

“When we agreed to reopen schools with the little resources we had in our coffers, we had not anticipated that it would take this long for government to pay the OVC fees,” he said.

He said government had deposited a third of the school fees, and that schools were operating on a shoe-string budget without the rest of the money.

“Some schools have been calling to say they can no longer sustain anything now. Reopening a school comes with a lot of financial requirements, which they were not prepared for,” he said.

Beneficiaries

Meanwhile, he registered doubt at the sincerity of government’s stance that schools were delaying in submitting lists of claims for pupils who are beneficiaries.

“I am not suggesting that all principals are efficient, but it beats me why a principal would neglect to submit the very thing that will help in the education of the children,” he said.

The president also decried that the delays in settling the balances came at a time when the pupils were about to sit for their final examinations.

“Most head teachers are being compelled by circumstances to buy things on credit, which is not right, because it creates queries for the Public Accounts Committee (PAC),” he said.

On the other hand, the budget estimates for the financial year 2020/21 state that government intended to channel E227 923 959 towards free primary education, while the budget for orphaned and vulnerable children is E180 million. At least 592 public primary schools benefit from this funding.