Addington Primary: March and March welcomes placement of displaced learners, rejects misinformation claims

March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma rejected claims that the organisation had submitted misleading information to the department. The organisation at the centre of protests at Addington Primary School has pushed back strongly against the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education’s account of their demonstrations, dismissingMEC Sipho Hlomuka’s interventionas overdue and rejecting claims that protesters acted irresponsibly or with political motives. Speaking outside the school after the MEC’s briefing,March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zumasaid the department was merely doing what it should have done weeks earlier.

Earlier Hlomuka said department officials had picked up errors on the list of displaced children provided by organisation. It said some of the children on the list needed to enter Grade 8. However he added that about 15 to 21 children that needed assistance would be accommodated at the school while Grade R children would be placed in another school.

In response to the intervention, Ngobese-Zuma said: “I think it was about time, and it’s not like we’re going to praise the government for doing what the government was supposed to do, like, weeks ago.” “So he showed up, and so did his people, and they did what they were supposed to do in the beginning, which is what we’ve been asking for. I don’t see anything commendable about it.” Ngobese-Zuma said the department’s claim that children had been placed ignored the practical realities facing families who were displaced by the floods and were currently staying in the Durban CBD. “They have been insisting that they have placed the children, and we have been persistently saying that claiming to solve one problem by creating another is not a solution,” she said. “If you are going to take people from where they used to live, you put them in a certain place and make things accessible to them, or else you’re the one that has to carry the burden of their welfare.” The MEC earlier accused the group of submitting an unverified list of learners, including children already enrolled elsewhere and placed in the wrong grades.