Makhura pleads with Katlehong community to protect newly renovated R77m school
By Botho Molosankwe 
26m ago
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Johannesburg – Almost 2000 pupils from Ekurhuleni started their new academic year in the newly renovated R77-million Abram Hlophe Primary School in Katlehong.
Clad in their new uniforms, the children were given masks, had their temperature checked, then sanitized as they arrived at school.
Gauteng premier David Makhura, Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi, Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina and MEC for infrastructure development Tasneem Motara, officially opened the school on Monday.
The old school was made up of mobile classrooms, a situation Lesufi decried as unacceptable.
“They must go to a beautiful school. We are proud as the Gauteng Provincial government that by opening this school, we are changing the face of townships.
“Our children must learn in a better environment,” he said.
The school, which has 69 teachers and is expected to accommodate 1900 pupils, is named after Abram Hlophe, a leader of the Congress of South African Students, who was shot and killed by the apartheid police in 1992 during riots in Katlehong.
Both Makhura and Lesufi pleaded with the Katlehong community to safeguard their new school.
In July 2019, residents burnt down Katlehong Primary School during a service delivery protest over electricity supply.
Lesufi said at the time that the department would arrange for the children to be relocated to a nearby primary school as they did not have funds to repair it.
“I cannot take money from another community that desperately needs a school and go to fix a school that people do not appreciate," he said at the time.
IOL