The MEC for Education, Mr Dickson Masemola, has warned Vhembe learners to stop drug abuse, stay away from alcohol during school hours and only concentrate on school work.

He also lashed out at teachers who abuse learners and have sexual relations with them. Masemola said the department would take drastic action against such teachers, because teachers are regarded as parents of those learners.

Masemola also appealed to parents to play an active role in promoting the education of their children by monitoring the performance of their children in all school work.

He was speaking at the Masisi sports grounds on Friday as part of one of the series of imbizos he was conducting in various regions in the province to promote better working conditions be-tween teachers, learners and parents as way of providing quality education.

The village of Masisi, situated outside Mutale in Limpopo, is part of the rural areas in the province where better services need to be promoted by the government, but communities should work well with the government, said Masemola. He said government prioritised education as one of the important programmes that must be promoted further in building a better nation.

“I am very touched by the situation in these areas that children have to travel more than 10 kilometres to school, and I want to assure learners that, come January 2010, the Department of Edu-cation in the province has prepared transport for learners in rural areas. The tender closed on Friday last week and successful bidders who will transport learners to school will be appointed early in January,” said Masemola.

The executive mayor of Vhembe District Municipality, Cllr Falaza Mdaka, said the municipality had set aside R2 million for helping poor children with bursaries to further their studies at uni-versities and FET Colleges next year.

Mdaka urged poor rural learners to apply and said those whose children who were from destitute families would receive preference as they wanted more rural learners to be educated.

One of the parents who attended the imbizo, Mr Ntungufhadzeni Mawela, told Masemola that many children in Masisi and surrounding villages had to travel more than 10 kilometres to and from schools and this might lead to pupils’ being raped or having to drop out of school. “We want the department to build schools around the communities, so that education can be for all the people,” said Mawela.