A Grade 9 pupil from a small village in the Wild Coast region tells of the hardship she and other pupils must endure on the walk to school and back home every day, while politicians refuse to talk about it.
Members of the South African Human Rights Commission walk to school with pupils who do not have access to scholar transport, on 6 March 2024. The walk started in Mbizana village, near Middledrift in the Eastern Cape, and took them to Ntabenkonyana Secondary School, nearly 10km away.
The girl, known only as Lulamile, is in Grade 9 at Seaview Secondary School in Zithulele. In her affidavit to the court, she describes her struggle: “Every school day, my day starts early at 5am. I have to get ready quickly because I leave home around 6am. The road to school is not like the smooth streets in town. It is a tough, steep road with lots of curves and it is full of big rocks and tall grass.
“Sometimes I can use private transport to get to school, but it costs R350 a month, which is a lot of money that my parents cannot really afford. So I walk most of the time. “Because of the long walk and rough road, our shoes wear out quickly and it is expensive to replace them. When it rains, our books get wet and damaged, and we lose our work. That is really bad for our learning and makes things even harder for us.
Shukuma Senior Secondary school pupil Thulani Mbube carries a fellow pupil across the Qebeni river from school in Bizana, Eastern Cape, on 31 January 2024. The leader of the opposition, Bobby Stevenson, who has since retired, took up the issue with the Speaker’s office in a letter.
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