• The Department of Education is closing over 900 small schools in KwaZulu-Natal as they have very little to no learners.
• These schools are mostly located in rural areas and are failing to enrol learners as they are under-resourced, underfunded and inadequately staffed.
• An independent report from the Centre of Development and Enterprise (CDE) on schools across the country indicates that the Department of Education is failing its mandate.

More than 900 schools, mostly in rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), are set to be closed, according to a plan formulated by the Department of Education. The department cites low enrolment rates in the schools as the driving factor for the closures.

South Africa faces unprecedented levels of youth unemployment, and as of 2022, nearly 20 percent of the nation’s matric were unable to pass. In his State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that “access to quality education for all is the most important instrument we have to end poverty.”

Low scholarly enrolment in areas where the most vulnerable people in the country live is another damning testament to the failures of the government to adequately staff, resource and uplift the schools in these communities.

The SABC reports that closures in the province will begin next year, with over 250 schools already on the chopping block.

“We are looking at progressively closing the small schools. Currently, there are over 900 such schools in the province, starting with those with the lowest enrolment or those which are furthest from the threshold, let’s say of 135 and 200,” said Nkosinathi Ngcobo, head of the Department of Education in KZN.

Ngcobo adds that the department is targeting schools that have an enrolment of almost zero, which are the “schools that have closed naturally simply because there is no single learner.”

Schools across KZN have been struggling to provide food for learners, with the department hoping to reestablish food supplies to the province’s institutions this week.

Meanwhile, over a million learners in the Eastern Cape are without their daily school meals because of the National School Nutrition Programme’s failures in the province’s rural areas, the poorest in South Africa.

A recently released report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), which was slammed by the department, called the state of South Africa’s schools “alarming.” The report cites, among many things, high dropout rates, falling standards for grade promotions, and dreadful learning outcomes.

For example, the report indicates that as of 2023, at least 82 percent of grade 4 learners in the country are unable to read for meaning – these are children nine to 10 years old.

The CDE made several recommendations to right the ship, but the department says simply that the report only succeeds in causing undue panic.

[Image – Photo by Jose Fontano on Unsplash]