Minister Michael Masutha has called on the community of Vuwani in Limpopo to ostracise the anarchists who burn down schools during protests. He visited the strife-torn region as part of the department’s back to school campaign on Wednesday, 18 January. Minister Michael Masutha encourages school learners to use education to improve their lives. He visited three of the 14 schools that were burned during the protest at Ha-Mashau in Vuwani. He led a DCS delegation, including parolees to Vhafamadi Secondary School, Mphagane Primary School and Vhudzani Secondary School.
Minister Masutha started at the palace of the local traditional leader Chief Tshivhangwaho Mashau to be briefed about the protest that has interrupted schooling on previous occasions. The protests stem from community discontent about the decision by the Municipal Demarcation Board to incorporate their area into the newly formed Collins Chabane Municipality. Chief Mashau told the Minister that 14 schools, a SASSA office, Post Office and a tribal office were burned in the area during the 2016 protests. “People who committed the deeds were not from here,” chief Mashau said.
Vhafamadi Secondary School has since been turned into state-of-the-art buildings comprising three classroom blocks and an office block. Former learners of the school raised funds to rebuild it. However, the grass around the new school had already grown to window level of the buildings due to the recent rains and parolees were brought in to cut it and clean the school yard.
National Commissioner Zach Modise promised that the department will get the parolees to plant trees and pave the yard once paving bricks and trees are procured. He said the visits to schools and communities help the department to identify areas where it can help. Minister Masutha 
said the instigators of arson must be seen for the thugs they are, and not be confused with the members of the community who are themselves victims. He said there has been a debate at the highest level of government on whether the schools of Vuwani should be rebuilt or the community be left to their own devices and be viewed as authors of their own misfortune.
The prevailing argument was that the schools must be rebuilt, which will happen soon. He told the children at Vhafamadi that learning in a modern school will give them the same opportunity as a child in any other part of the country. “We do not want the children of Vuwani to be seen as rural children who are confined to the immediate environment they grew in. They must think for themselves as the next engineers,” he said. Referring to the arsonists, he said, “We need to inspire our community to understand that you may be angered by anything, but you cannot forgive yourself for taking from a child an opportunity to change their life through education.” He said skilling the youth was one of the ways of preventing involvement of youth in such acts. “Once a young person has some skills, they have a sense of pride, even if they are unemployed and will therefore not get involved in things that are detrimental to progress,” he said.
Minister Masutha motivated the leaners to achieve whatever they dream of achieving despite the environment they learn in. He told them never to commit crime for they will end up in correctional centres. The Principal of Mphagane Primary School, Richard Mudau, pleaded with the Minister to help in getting school books delivered to the school as they were becoming desperate.
