The Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal has said it will not rebuild a school reportedly set alight this week by pupils who were allegedly enraged by the poor marks they had been given.
Three buildings at the Zwelinjani Secondary School in Zwelibomvu in the Pinetown District were burnt down.
‘We have said that [we are] not going to rebuild schools deliberately destroyed by communities. We need to know who these kids are and isolate them,’ department spokesperson Kwazi Mthethwa told News24.
‘We are in the process of trying to identify the offending pupils and will then put them through a school disciplinary process.’
Mthethwa said education facilities were a precious resource in communities and had to be protected.
‘Other kids are desperately looking for a new school or facilities in school. You cannot take resources to people who are destroying an important resource. That is essentially promoting anarchy and vandalism. We have to come to a point where we say enough is enough.’
Mthethwa called on parents to help identify the pupils who ‘committed these crimes’.
‘These are acts of criminality. We cannot condone this. We are working with the police now. Parents must come forward. How can you keep quiet when your child is involved in something so serious? We have not heard anything from parents.’
Earlier this year, the Mvuzo High School in Pietermaritzburg and the Bathembu High School in Msinga, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, were also damaged in suspected arson attacks.