BY REGINALD KANYANE

North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Education and Sports Development, Arts, Culture and Traditional affairs held a meeting with the Department of Education on Thursday and requested MEC Wendy Matsemela to go back and prepare a detailed and comprehensive report on the North West School for the Deaf incident; after the Committee found the one she presented lacked details.

The Committee had requested a brief report from the Department of Education after an incident that occurred at North West School for the Deaf in the early hours of Monday morning where a fire gutted down the school hostel, leaving three (3) learners dead and 53 others being hospitalised after suffering minor injuries.

The committee also requested the department to present a comprehensive report on the Christiana School for the Blind incident where a fire broke down at the school on the 29 November 2010, leaving four (4) learners dead.

After hearing about the incident in the media, the Committee went on a fact finding mission at the North West School for Deaf to actually find out what had happened, thus the request for the reports from the department.

Committee Chairperson, Boitumelo Moiloa said the department’s report could not be discussed at the meeting because it lacked detail, and left members of the Portfolio Committee having to guess what had actually transpired.

“It did not specify whether during the time of the incident, there were security personnel and care-givers at the school and educators adequately responded to the incident on time.

“The report can only be taken as a briefing document but then it still lacks detail and it did not include security and disaster management plans of the school,” said Moiloa.

The report for the Christiana School for the Blind incident was not signed; therefore the Committee rejected it on the basis that it was not a legal document that the Committee can hold the department accountable for.

The Chairperson said the Committee had requested the department to provide the Christiana School for the Blind incident report because some issues could have helped the department to ensure that special schools are properly resourced to avoid such incidents.

The department has been requested to submit comprehensive reports on both incidents by Monday, 31 August 2015. Those reports will be discussed in a meeting that will be held at the Legislature on Tuesday 1 September 2015 in the Legislature Committee Room2 at 16h00.

-TDN

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