MAKHADO – The Masedi Combined Public School has reason to pride itself on its latest matric results.

Notwithstanding the fact that the combined primary and secondary school is bursting at its seams without sufficient accommodation and without space for its administrative functions, the school attained a 70% pass rate during the recent matric examinations.

Masedi was in the national news some years ago when its first Grade 12 learners had to prepare themselves for the matric examinations without sufficient teachers and without having access to the appropriate prescribed books, while receiving tuition in dilapidated tents. Their classrooms were declared unsafe for human occupation and departmental book supplies just never arrived. There were also no electricity or even toilet facilities at the school.

The schools first matric class was a predictable disaster.

A major outcry from the community resulted in the erection of a brand new primary school building, and official promises, on national television by the then official spokesperson for the Provincial Department, of a separate new secondary school.

The new primary school building was erected without any administrative space. The primary school, in the meantime, also had to accommodate secondary school learners, while negotiations got underway for the erection of the officially promised first fully fledged secondary school in this expanding township.

The local municipal council, in an unprecedented act, then reached out to assist the provincial authorities in the provision of sufficient school space. A strategically situated serviced stand was made available, free of charge. In addition, the local authority also pledged a fixed percentage of its annual budget for the provision of additional educational facilities, on condition that the provincial educational authorities would provide the rest on a rand-for-rand basis. A special committee representing the provincial and local authorities was activated to decide on the best venue for the new secondary school. A site next to the junction of the main entrance to Tshikota from the Vivo road was mutually decided on.

Shortly afterwards, the provincial authority unilaterally and without giving any reason, withdrew from the committee and the urgent provision of the much needed secondary school crashed to a standstill. Media enquiries about the project could not shed any light on the reason for the provincial Education Department’s reneging on its public promise.

Under the administration of ex-mayor Tlakula, the secondary school for Tshikota was described as a “mayoral project,” with the promise that the mayor would take up and renegotiate the issue with the appropriate MEC. No visible progress was made though.

The money made available by the local municipality for the provision of educational facilities, and initially ear marked for the secondary school in Tshikota, has in the meantime been reallocated for the provision of additional facilities on the opposite side of the town in Eltivillas, kilometres east of Tshikota and its deprived residents.

Now, several years later, with additional massive residential expansion in Tshikota, Masedi School, in its limited primary school building, is still the only school facility in Tshikota, and still bravely struggling to provide in the total, ever-increasing primary and secondary educational needs of a seriously disadvantaged community, seemingly just arrogantly left in the lurch by the provincial government.

When the school reopened this week, the new arrivals in both the primary and secondary divisions of the school were being processed at a school desk under a tree on the school premises. The “open air” administration at this double-barrelled educational facility was seemingly very efficiently handled by the same people who led the school to its latest proud matric results.