Education department warns parents

Tremaine van Aardt and Zandile Mbabela

THE Eastern Cape Basic Education Department has threatened to call in police to prevent frustrated Uitenhage school governing bodies (SGB) from protesting.

This comes after pupils and parents from McCarthy Comprehensive School, fed up with the lack of teachers in a number of the town's schools, closed both district offices again yesterday and threatened to do the same at affected schools. This is the second time within a week that district offices have been closed by angry parents.

McCarthy governing body chairman Laurence Mostert said they would not back down until they received positive news. "We need teachers! Last week Tuesday we had a meeting with the Uitenhage district director, Nozizwe Bashman, and she had nothing positive to report. We then closed the district office the following day," he said.