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It is very shocking that Cosmo City Schools have up to 82 learners per classroom yet the Gauteng Department of Education continues to ignore the schools' plea to be provided with mobile classrooms.

As part of the DA Gauteng Schools oversight campaign we visited the following schools on Friday, 11 August 2017; Cosmos City Junior Primary School, Cosmos City No.1 Primary School and Cosmo City Secondary School.

There is severe overcrowding in the classrooms in all these schools.

In Cosmo City Secondary School there is a total of 1357 learners. In the grade 8 classroom there are 74 learners; in grade 9 there are 82 learners per class; in grade 10 there are 65 learners per class; in grade 11 there are 50 learners per class and in grade 12 there are 56 learners per class.

The current ratio of an educator to a learner is 1:60 in Cosmo City Secondary School.

There is also a shortage of chairs and some learners are sitting on top of the desks.

Due to the shortage of classrooms, the school is using a hall as a classroom for grade 9 learners.

This is the same in Cosmos City Junior Primary School, the school is overcrowded with a total number of 1714 learners which is above the 1020 recommended capacity per school.

The overcrowding of learners in this school is affecting the sewer system and as a result, there are sewer blockages. This has been the case for a decade now. The raw sewage is flowing next to the classrooms, posing a health risk for learners.

The school is also using the library and computer lab as classrooms.

There is also overcrowding at Cosmo City No. 1 Primary School with a total of 1510 learners.

The magnitude of overcrowding in these schools classrooms is unacceptable. It affects the learners' ability to concentrate, as the environment is not conducive for learning.

We will hold MEC Lesufi accountable in ensuring that overcrowding is reduced in these schools' classrooms. The department should provide mobile classrooms and chairs to these schools.

The DA believes that it is the government’s obligation to ensure that no learner’s educational advancement is prejudiced by the learning environment. The MEC must spend the infrastructure budget. These schools must be prioritized so that the learner to educator ratio is 1:40 and 1:35 as according to the schools' norms and standards.

Issued by DA