As if infrastructural collapse, overcrowding in classrooms, teacher shortages, safety issues and poverty weren’t enough, pupils across Ekurhuleni are under threat of learning in classrooms that have no electricity supply.
The Sowetan has reported that the municipality has issued disconnection notices to 189 schools on account of non-payment of their electricity bill amounting to R109.2m from the education department.
Granted, all users of any billable service, including government departments, must pay their dues. The amounts owed are staggering, and municipalities cannot afford to function without revenue. Ratepayers cannot be expected to subsidise government departments indefinitely. The question is not whether the lights must be switched off, but how the department let the situation get to this ― who did not do their job?
There is something profoundly wrong with this situation, as not only do children bear the brunt of poor leadership, it exposes a dangerous moral failure ― the most vulnerable continue to be compromised.
Worse still, the quiet transfer of financial responsibility onto individual schools is setting them up to fail. As the City of Johannesburg acknowledged through spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane, schools are increasingly expected to manage and settle their own municipal accounts.
Not taking care of the affairs of environments where the future of this country is being shaped is an assault on all of us. Schools are not administrative buildings, some regional office or not a military base; they have the responsibility to ensure that all get an education, a basic human right.
As Matakanye Matakanya of the National Association of School Governing Bodies correctly warned, electricity is not a luxury in modern education. It is infrastructure as essential as desks and teachers.
The Gauteng department of education cannot claim commitment to education while allowing utility debt to accumulate to crisis levels. Nor can municipalities claim to support community development while targeting institutions that serve children, many of whom already face enormous social and economic barriers.
Worse still, the quiet transfer of financial responsibility onto individual schools is setting them up to fail. As the City of Johannesburg acknowledged through spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane, schools are increasingly expected to manage and settle their own municipal accounts.
The result is predictable and dangerous. According to Sergio Dos Santos, schools are diverting funds meant for textbooks and learning materials just to keep the lights on. This is not financial management. It is educational cannibalism, sacrificing learning to sustain basic operations.
It is the poorest schools that will suffer most. Schools in places like Vosloorus and Eldorado Park already face systemic disadvantages. Burdening them with debt, billing disputes and infrastructure failures only deepens inequality.
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