Parents, educators and learners at Mabila Primary outside Thohoyandou say they are devastated by plans to merge the school with Mufulwi Primary, more than 20km away, raising concerns over transport, timing and sanitation challenges. Picture Credit: Supplied
By Ndivhuwo Mukwevho
Thohoyandou – School Governing Body (SGB), parents, learners and educators at Mabila Primary School, outside of Thohoyandou in Limpopo says that they are dissatisfied and heartbroken by what they call a ‘harsh’ decision by the Provincial Department of Education to shut down the school and move learners to another school far away from their homes.
Earlier this month Mabila Primary was notified by the Provincial Department of Education that the school will be closed down at the beginning of March this year and learners will be moved to Mufulwi Primary School, which is situated in Mufulwi village, more than 20 kilometres away from Mabila Primary.
Rotshidzwa Maluga SGB chairperson at Mabila Primary told Timeless News that the decision was not well calculated by the department as Mufulwi Primary is very far from Mabila and it will be impossible for some of the learners to make it to the school on time.
“First of all they should have notified us last year that they planned to shut down our school this year so we could make arrangements in time to move out our children from the school. Now look, they want to shut down the school in the middle of a year which is very wrong and move our children to a school which is very far away from us. We are so disappointed,” said Maluga.
Mabila Primary currently has an enrolment of 142 learners from grade R to 7 and all these learners reside in Mabila village, which is a walking distance from their homes to the school, something which will not be possible if they are moved to Mufulwi Primary.
Maluga said that they are also failing to understand why the department wants to shutdown Mabila Primary instead of Mufulwi Primary which has a low enrolment of less than 60 learners and consists of only three blocks of classrooms.
“We have been told that the reason to shut down the school is due to low enrolment, but to our surprise the enrolment has been always like this for years as we hardly had over 200 learners a year. But why do they want to close down the school now? What is the motive behind their decision? Those are the questions which we are asking ourselves,” said Maluga.
Currently, Mabila Primary consists of one principal, and four teachers, two for intermediate and two for foundation phases. Speaking to Timeless News, a teacher at the school who wished to remain anonymous said that she is not looking forward to the proposed move as she is happy with the current set up at Mabila primary, a school she has worked at for over a decade.
According to Maluga, even learners and parents are not looking forward to the proposed move.
“When we notified our stakeholders which include learners and parents, they both told us that they are not prepared for the proposed merger and they are going to contest to stop it from taking place,” he said.
Mike Maringa, the provincial spokesperson for education in Limpopo told Timeless News that Mabila Primary was first pronounced for a merger in 2022 owing to learner enrolment of below 135.
“Merging centre is said to be Mufulwi Primary school. MECs consultation took place on the 17th October 2022. Circular 82 of 2025 directed that all learners and educators whose pronounced schools move to identified merging centre. Merging ensures that learners receive quality of basic education,” said Maringa.
Maringa further stated that, small schools do not have adequate educators to implement prescribed curriculum.
“Such learners have content and knowledge gaps that lead to leaner drop out or poor results especially in grade 12,” he said.
Maringa failed to respond to questions on whether transportation arrangements will be made available for learners from Mabila in order to get to Mufulwi primary with ease should the merger take place.
Mabila Primary school is currently struggling without proper sanitation, after their pit latrines were demolished but never replaced. Maluga now believes that the delay in building new toilets for Mabila learners is being done deliberately to force them into agreeing to the merger.
“Now it is clear why these people do not want to build us new sanitation blocks. The pit toilets were demolished about 20 months ago, but till today we continue to wait for new toilets or just a date on when the construction process will take place,” said Maluga.
