Chiloane apologises in emotional farewell to Dayveton teens
Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane has apologised to the families of the two Dayveton pupils who drowned during a discipline camp earlier this month.
Teenagers Siphamandla Peterson and Sibusiso Sibiya, from the Dayveton Skills School, were laid to rest in Tembisa on Wednesday afternoon.
Friends, family, and schoolmates paid tribute to the boys who were remembered in hymns as their coffins stood draped in blankets with framed portraits of their faces staring blankly at the congregants.
Speakers became emotional as they remembered the 13 and 16-year-olds whose lives were cut short by the tragedy.
Speaking at the joint funeral service, which was held at the Rabasotho Community Hall, Chiloane said the pupils' deaths were a loss to the nation.
“For us, these children were an investment. An investment that we believed that tomorrow they will make us a better nation. When you lose one of them, you have lost one too many.”
The MEC also said now is not the time for finger-pointing.
“I am not going to stand here and say, ‘It’s not me, it’s this one and that one’. As a leader of the department, I should take accountability when these problems occur.”
Investigations into the circumstances leading up to the drownings were underway.
Chiloane assured the families of two teenage boys that officials from the law firm appointed to probe the incident will visit them soon.
“They are not investigating because, internally, we don’t know what happened and what should have been done. We are bringing an independent view and people from outside who can’t be contaminated by the politics of the department but will do their work ethically, with integrity and honesty.
"Already we’ve put the law firm in place.”
This is the second school drowning incident involving a Gauteng school this year.
In January, 12-year-old Latoya Temilton died when she reportedly drowned while on an excursion organised by her school, Laerskool Queenswood.
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