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By Lebone Rodah Mosima
Five workshops and a storeroom have been destroyed in a fire at Sewagodimo Technical School in Pella Village, the second North West school to be hit by a major blaze in three days.
North West Education MEC Dr Desbo Mohono condemned the “barbaric incident”, saying the destruction of school infrastructure placed more pressure on the department’s limited resources.
The North West Department of Education said the school held a camp for matriculants over the weekend, with classes ending on Sunday afternoon.
“Following the camp, a parents’ meeting was held and ended at 4pm. The educators left the school premises at 5:00pm,” the department said.
“At 5:53pm, the school management was alerted to a fire at the school. Management immediately contacted the South African Police Service and firefighters, who were dispatched to the scene. By the time they arrived, the fire was in its final stages of burning.”
The department said the cause of the fire remained unknown and investigations were under way to determine what led to the incident.
All five workshops, each comprising a storeroom and a classroom, were reportedly completely destroyed by the fire.
A separate storeroom located outside the block was also burnt down.
The incident followed another school fire at Matlhare Mokautu Secondary School in Monakato Township on Friday, where a school hall was burned down.
“The burning of school properties is robbing our future generations of valuable educational resources, and I have repeatedly highlighted that the government has limited resources,” the MEC said.
The cause of the Sewagodimo fire has not yet been established, while the Matlhare Mokautu fire is being investigated as suspected arson.
Sunday’s fire comes just over two weeks after the North West Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Education visited Sewagodimo Technical School in early August as part of an oversight programme.
The committee reported ageing infrastructure, dysfunctional toilets, broken doors and windows and inadequate perimeter fencing at the school.
Mohono said the department already had a backlog of schools that needed to be built and renovated across the province.
She said this had forced the department to redirect resources to repair schools that had previously been in good condition.
“I am calling on the community to provide information to the South African Police Service so that those responsible for this barbaric incident can be brought to book,” she said.
The department said it would dispatch a team of inspectors on Monday to assess the extent of the damage.
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