Go Big Community Development
Parents and teachers of hundreds of Gqeberha learners who may miss out on taking part in a marching drill competition due to a funding debacle, have expressed anger at Eastern Cape Education authorities.
Budgetary constraints have led to the Provincial Department withdrawing pre-approved funding for their participation in the Western Cape Schools Marching Drill competition this Saturday.
Department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said due to a tight budget, funds had to be re-allocated.
Meanwhile, parents, some of whom are also teachers, met on Tuesday to try and find a solution, after the apparent 11-hour withdrawal by the Department.
Algoa FM News spoke to Koleka Ndzuta, an educator and parent of a learner at Charles Duna Primary School in New Brighton, one of the four schools selected for the competition.
“I’m very angry,” she said.
“Because my kid has put in a lot of effort and a lot of commitment to be part of this thing only to find out at the eleventh hour that they might not be going because the department has pulled out… It’s quite frustrating and I’m very, very angry.”
Buyiswa Nombombo, another teacher and the coordinator for the marching drill programme at the school said even school holidays were dedicated to the programme so that the children could prepare for Cape Town.
Nombombo said they even had to organise uniforms for those children who could not afford their own, raising sponsorships, so that they could look nice.
“I’m feeling so said [and] so disappointed because we’ve put in a lot of hard work,” said Nombombo.
Department spokesperson Mali Mtima said: “The department has undergone a process of reprioritisation based on the austerity measures and as such issues of this nature have been under budgeted to ensure teaching and learning is not compromised.
“We were therefore unable to fund this trip. We are aware of it, but we are unable to fund it.”
It offered little consolation for everyone involved, said Zee Agherdien, that project coordinator at Go Big Community Development.
“We understand and we are not naïve to know that budgets do get shifted and moved around from time to time,” he said during a media briefing on Tuesday.
“But the challenge that we are sitting with – which is the hardest pill to swallow – is that a budget had been allocated and committed to us at the beginning of the year when the programme started.
“We sat with the district coordinator that handles Safer Schools and looked at the draft budget and we said, ‘okay, we are fine and satisfied with what you are allocating’.”
“Fast forward three, four days ahead of the competition and that entire script has changed now.
“From February when money was put aside for the marching drill – assuming that everything was going well throughout the year – this is a big shock to learn that monies have been moved to other directions.”
