SACP Western Cape calls for Klapmuts Primary School to be opened to all races and a need to build a high school
16 February 2021
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape calls on the Western Cape Department of Education to respond to the demands of the Winelands district, in particular theKlapmuts community by ensuring that the doors of learning and culture are open to working-class children.
A disappointing reality exists that, 27 years into democracy, in the Western Cape we continue to have well-resourced schools that are meant purely to serve particular racial groups at the exclusion of other population groups.
In Klapmuts, there exists a school that is meant to serve a particular section of the community, that is to the exclusion of those who speak indigenous languages. The Western Cape department of education has been condoning this exclusionary nature of the school. This is deliberate sabotage to the project of building a non-racial society as it further deepens the hatred amongst the people on the bases of language and race.
This unfortunate reality can only advance the perpetuation of the colonial and apartheid set up to which the Provincial government is complicit. For some time, those who lead the Provincial government have been reinforcing divisions and unnecessary racial tensions in communities. Such mode of operation can only be similar to that of the apartheid policy of divide and conquer within the working-class communities.
The SACP in the province, working with the ANC headed Education sub-committee, will engage with relevant authorities on the matter. The Party, its alliance partners and the Klapmuts community will fight till a solution is found. Thus, the Party will demand the building of a high school in the township of Klapmuts.
The SACP calls on the broader community of Klapmuts in the Winelands district to reject any form of fuelling racial divisions but to unite for the provision of access to basic education by all children irrespective of race.
Issued by Benson Ngqentsu, SACP Western Cape Provincial Secretary, 16 February 2021
