Africa-Press – Eswatini. Mphini Primary School teachers petitioned Manzini regional education officer over unpaid FPE grants since December 2020.
The petition was delivered to the Manzini Regional Education Officer (REO) Sizwe Kunene yesterday morning. According to the teachers, they decided to petition the REO after years of hoping that government, through the ministry of education and training (MoET), would disburse the Free Primary Education (FPE) grants for the second trench, which was expected to be paid in July 2020 without success.
The educators said the non-disbursement of the FPE grant for so long had negatively affected the teaching and learning process, as the school could not afford to purchase resources to be used by teachers and pupils on a daily basis.
Credit
All along, the school had relied on procurring stationery on credit , but since suppliers had not been paid in a long time, the good relations that they had soured as they had been making empty promises on payments.
Also, the teachers stated that they used the money from government to pay stipends for the school’s support staff. Therefore, due to the almost two-year delay in payment, this had caused the school principal to fail to pay the support staff’s wages since June 2021.
By extension, this delay has turned the school premises into breeding ground for snakes, as it has no one to maintain the surroundings.
Further, Mphini Primary School is said to be without water and electricity, as the school does not have enough money in its coffers to pay for utility bills.
Mphini Primary School is one of the eight schools in the Manzini Region that have reported their grievances with the Manzini REO.
Another school is Hillside Primary School, where learners engaged in a protest last week over non-availability of food, teaching and learning materials, and electricity.
This was confirmed by the principal Phumzile Vilakati, who said after reporting the school challenges to the REO last Thursday, they were hoping that solutions would be availed soon.
When reached for comment, the REO confirmed that there were eight schools that had lodged complaints over the non-payment of the FPE grants by government.
The eight schools include Hillside Primary, Mphini Primary, Bhudla Primary, Mhlabubovu Primary and Antioch Primary, among others. He said he forwarded all the schools’ issues to the ministry , which was working on addressing them.
Learners
Meanwhile, Grade VII learners at St. Theresa’s Primary School might be without a French teacher soon as the one they had is no longer motivated to go to school. This follows that her contract had not been renewed by government. This was confirmed by the principal Dan Dlamini, who said all along, the teacher had been reporting for duty with the hope that her contract would be renewed.
Dlamini said the teacher was facing challenges in that she could no longer afford to travel to work or pay bills because she had been working without pay for a while.
The principal said there were two teachers who were hired on contract basis and only one contract was renewed.
He said this would affect the learners as the school would not afford to pay the teacher until a time when government renewed her contract.
“This is a challenge because French is one of the critical subjects for which the availability of a teacher is essential,” Dlamini said. The principal also mentioned that it would be pointless for learners to come to school only for them not to learn because there was no teacher.
For More News And Analysis About Eswatini Follow Africa-Press
