Sandiso Phaliso
With temperatures dropping below freezing in the past few days, homeless people in Alice, Eastern Cape, were forced to seek warmth in the local school.
But their decision to light a fire to stay warm inside Jabavu High School resulted in disaster.
The fire allegedly started in one classroom and spread across several rooms in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Grade 12 maths and physics classes, the school library, science and maths laboratory bathrooms, the school’s storeroom and even its tuck-shop were all burnt to ashes.
A teacher, who didn’t want to be named, told Scrolla.Africa that their school doesn’t have proper fencing and it would have been easy for the homeless people to squat inside the classrooms.
“This has really affected teaching and learning. We lost all the books that we kept at the library. We lost everything in the maths and science computer laboratories,” the teacher said.
The fire was fed by the school’s extensive library collection.
“The burnt library is devastating because it is where we keep the textbooks. There was expensive material in the maths and science laboratories,” the teacher added.
He said they had already started with vital trial examinations when disaster struck.
“If we continue with teaching we would be exposing the learners to danger because the walls of the classrooms are cracking;”.
He said the district department had promised to assist with mobile classrooms so that teaching and learning may continue sometime next week.
A resident who lives opposite the school, Athenkosi Mbele, said the community was woken by loud bangs. When they went to investigate they saw the school was on fire.
“We watched helplessly because the fire was too strong, there was nothing we could do. Firefighters came about two hours later and doused the fire,” said Mbele.
He confirmed that there were young boys who used the school premises when it’s too cold and made bonfires.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana said they were investigating a case of arson.
Eastern Cape education department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima had not responded to our enquiry by the time of publication.
