An Eastern Cape school facing serious overcrowding has pinned its hopes on having the problem addressed by the public protector. A grade 11 pupil said there were 89 pupils in her class in 2025. Failing that, the aggrieved parents of Zameka Senior Secondary School’s pupils in Tyutyu village in Bhisho have vowed to take the department of education to court to force it to provide them with temporary classrooms and ultimately build them a proper school.
On Tuesday, parents and pupils marched to the Office of the Public Protector in Bhisho and laid a complaint. Acting public protector spokesperson Ndili Msoki confirmed receipt of the complaint. There have been no lessons at the school since Monday.
When the Dispatch arrived, the school gate was locked and teachers stood outside. In a letter submitted to the office, school governing body secretary Luvuyo Gwelana said the department had failed to provide enough much-needed prefabricated classrooms to the school. Of the eight prefabs the school had asked for, only four were delivered.
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The prefabs add to a brick-and-mortar block of four classrooms built by parents decades ago which together house over 500 children from grades 8 to 12. Zameka is the only high school in Tyutyu Village, and parents in three nearby villages all enrol their children there. The complaint laid with the public protector reads: “Despite the SGB’s continuous outreach to relevant offices like the office of the BCM district director, the provincial head of department office, the education MEC’s office and the premier’s office, we have not received any satisfactory resolution to mitigate the poor infrastructure and overcrowding in our school.
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