Parliament, Wednesday, 26 March 2025 – The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education expressed grave concerns about the language and admissions policies at some of the schools it visited in Gauteng yesterday, including Pretoria High School for Girls.
Committee Chairperson Ms Joy Maimela said the committee conducted an oversight visit to Pretoria High School for Girls yesterday. Issues of language, admission and racial incidents at the school were highlighted. “The school has previously been in the media about race-related incidents. Some of the incidents are still being investigated, they are ongoing.
“The school speaks about multilingualism and the importance of home language. However, the school only offers English, Afrikaans and Sepedi. They are not prioritising other indigenous languages,” she said.
Ms Maimela said the committee further wants an investigation into the misuse of school vehicles. “We were informed that the principal’s husband, who is not in the employ of the school or the department, uses the school vehicles. The principal confirmed this. This is unacceptable. The department needs to investigate this irregularity,” she said. Concerns were also raised about the recruitment of the principal’s daughter a few years ago.
The committee is on a week-long oversight visit to schools in Gauteng. Ms Maimela said the primary focus of the visits is to assess the state of readiness of schools in these provinces for the 2025 academic year. She said the focus areas are learner admissions and teacher/learner ratios, early childhood development, National Senior Certificate 2024 results and improvement plans for 2025 and implantation of curriculum including coding and robotics, mathematics, science and technology.
The committee will also focus on support for rural education and special schools, user-friendly infrastructure and preparing learners for post-school education/entry to workplace-based learning programmes. Social cohesion, including the gender-based violence framework, safety in schools and preparing learners for participation in school sports and talent identification in music eisteddfods will also be assessed.
Ms Maimela said the committee noted the skewed employee and educator demographics at Pretoria High School for Girls. “The majority of the educators are white. We want to how they do recruitment and why is their recruitment skewed towards a certain race,” she elaborated.
Earlier yesterday, the committee also visited Filadelphia School for Learners with Special Needs and Paramaribo Primary School in Soshanguve. The implications of financial constraints on the provision of services at the schools were evident. “We are concerned that mother-tongue education is not being prioritised at Paramaribo Primary School, as parents are not prioritising the utilisation of mother-tongue education,” Ms Maimela said.
Ms Maimela said visits to other schools in Gauteng will continue until the end of the week.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON BASIC EDUCATION, MS JOY MAIMELA.
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