Parents of children at one of the country’s worst-performing schools – where all the matrics failed their final exams last year – are livid that the department of basic education is contemplating closing it down.

All 17 pupils who wrote matric failed. Isivivane Senior Secondary School is in the Chris Hani West education district, near Queenstown, and is one of two schools in the Eastern Cape and seven around the country that scored a 0% matric pass last year.Many residents of nearby Rhodani village question the government’s motives for wanting to shut it down. Villagers view it as a quick fix and accuse the provincial education department of wanting to avoid taking responsibility.

They insist the reason the school’s pupils failed was because they have had no maths, physical science, agriculture and geography teachers for years. The school has four teachers, including the principal, Linda Ntlanganiso.He told City Press that it was the only high school in the area and it currently has 106 pupils enrolled.

“Yes, there are a low number of pupils. But if you close down this only school, what are you saying about the future of these children? All that we need to turn the situation around is at least four more teachers. If we can get that, I guarantee you, these children will pass,” he said.

As well as the teacher shortage, Ntlanganiso said the dismal results were because many pupils did not attend classes.“I am very disappointed. I thought at least 12 out of the 17 would pass, but it was not to be. At least the 12 have a chance to write supplementary exams.

“Since I arrived here in April 2016, the department has promised to redeploy temporary teachers to us. We are still waiting for them. The problem is mostly human resources, even though we don’t have things such as a library or computer and science laboratories. But if they can bring teachers, our school will turn around,” said Ntlanganiso.However, provincial education department head Themba Kojana said there was no point in “disadvantaging pupils” by keeping them in an underperforming school.

“We are going to investigate why the school is not performing when is has so few pupils enrolled. That is why we talk of unviable schools. If you have 17 pupils in matric, it means that the school is not viable. I think there will be intervention. We are going to follow up on that to find out why the school still exists,” Kojana said.Parents have vowed to stop attempts to shut down the school, which locals established in 1992.Nongamsithi Tyolwana (63) has two grandchildren at the school and is vehemently opposed to its closure. She blames the school’s failures on the department. One of her grandchildren, Ludwe Bukhwele (20), was one of the 17 matrics who failed.

“The department has failed our children. How are they supposed to pass when they have no teachers in all the subjects every year? We built the school with our bare hands because there was no high school in the village. We then handed the school to the government to provide it with the relevant facilities. They can’t do the simplest of things like employ teachers,” she said.