MOSSEL BAY NEWS - The first salvo in a legal battle to restore the rights of the schoolchildren from Powertown who now live in Sonskynvallei was fired off this week.

Lawyers for Human Rights wrote to the Western Cape MEC for Education, Debbie Schafer, to demand she gives an undertaking that her department will continue "to provide transport to the children as in 2017, or provide another solution that will ensure the children will continue with their schooling".

"We have instructions to approach the High Court if we have not received such an undertaking by 1 February," the letter, signed by Hlengiwe Mtsatsha on behalf of Lawyers for Human Rights, states.

This follows intervention by Mossel Bay councillor Dawid Kamfer, of the Icosa party, who enlisted the assistance of the NGO to represent the community in its efforts to resolve issues of their children's access to schools.

The people involved previously lived in Powertown, but were relocated to Sonskynvallei in 2017.

While in Powertown, the children were transported at the cost of provincial government to schools in Great Brak River. 

This subsidised transport, however, was stopped at the end of 2017.

The department insists that parents were informed they must enrol their primary school children in the nearby Hartenbos Primary School and apply for accommodation for their high school children at the Sao Bras High School hostel.

While parents argue that they were told there was no room for their children at Hartenbos Primary School, the centralised educational management information system of the Western Cape Education Department on 25 January indicated there were several places available in every grade.

In their letter to the MEC, Lawyers for Human Rights, however, mentions the dangers children who have to walk from Sonskynvallei to Hartenbos Primary will have to face daily.

The letter states "... the business of the route poses a danger particularly to the younger learners.

Secondly, parents cannot afford to pay for private transport in the absence of assistance from the Department of Education. ... the parents relocated, relying on the undertaking that the children will be able to continue with their schooling despite the fact that no schools are available in the immediate vicinity of Sonskyn valley (sic)."

The deadline set for the department to respond had not yet lapsed at the time of going to press.

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