Limpopo community closes down school
The community of Mohokone in Limpopo have shut down the Seunane Secondary School.
Residents are demanding admission for grade 10 and 11 learners.
Parents said they've been told by the Education Department that enrolment numbers were not sufficient.
Community leader Eddy Machete said they want an explanation from the department.
"It cost more than R12 million to build this school and it is furnished...it meets the standards and the norms of education that is required...if they can provide us with grade 10 and 11, there will be not protest," Machete said.
Grade 10 pupils attending schools in a nearby village said it's a challenge to get to school.
The School Governing Body Chairperson, Merriam Seunane, said pupils could not be allowed to walk to and from school on their own.
"When it rains our kids do not walk to school. They get raped, they are mugged on their way, yet we sit with a school that is not being used," Seunane said.
The spokesperson for the Limpopo Department of Education, Naledzani Rasila, said the school did not have enough learners to justify more teachers for those grades.
Rasila said they were already in the process of finding a way to utilise the empty classrooms.
"We are sitting and discussing and making sure that we find ways of effectively using those classrooms," Rasila said.