Mpumalanga’s special needs learners face education and boarding crises

‘There are five schools for learners with moderate intellectual disability (MID) in the province, but they are only for high school age learners, so from the age of 14 up to 18 and with extension up to 21. There is not one special school in the province that is an MID school for primary school learners, so there is a very big need for those MID schools and that is a big problem.”

These were the words of Rianda Vosloo, an occupational therapist at Estralita School for Special Educational Needs in Lydenburg, Mpumalanga.

In previous years, learners with moderate intellectual disabilities were accommodated in special education classes within mainstream schools. However, due to the implementation of the inclusive free education strategy, many of these special classes had been discontinued. As a result, these learners were now placed in inclusive schools, which were expected to provide remedial support. However, many of these schools were not adequately equipped to meet the needs of these learners, as they did not have therapists or psychologists on their staff, said Vosloo.

“At best they have remedial education and they are expected to accommodate those learners within the normal classrooms with some guidance and support from the remedial teachers. The learners would get much better education and support if they were in a special school catering specifically for an MID child, or if the school had a separate class, a special education class specifically for those learners with an educator qualified to address those needs. Inclusive education is not the ideal way for these learners,” she said.

The Inclusive Education Policy defines three levels of support for learners:

• Learners with high support needs should attend special schools.


• Those with moderate support needs should be placed in full-service schools.


• Learners with low support needs should be accommodated in ordinary public schools.

Read more: The state of education for learners with disabilities is a crisis within a crisis

A boarding crisis

Estralita is one of 12 schools in the province catering to learners with severe intellectual disabilities (SID). The school can accommodate 220 learners and has boarding facilities that can accommodate 160 learners.

While Vosloo believes there are enough SID schools in the area, the lack of boarding facilities remains a significant challenge for many families.

“There is a problem with not enough schools having boarding facilities. For instance, in the Gert Sibande area, there are four schools, but none of them has a boarding facility and that is a huge area,” she said.

These gaps in special needs education reflect broader systemic issues in Mpumalanga. Last week, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mpumalanga successfully passed a motion in the provincial legislature calling for urgent action to support learners with special educational needs.

The DA’s motion also called on MEC for Education Cathy Dlamini and the education department to urgently intervene at Masinakane Special Needs School in the Dr JS Maroka Local Municipality. The school has been struggling with inadequate boarding facilities since the building they previously used was condemned, forcing learners to sleep in classrooms.

In February 2020, it was revealed that 27 girls had been living in a staff room at the school since April 2019, while another 73 pupils were housed in four classrooms that had been converted into makeshift “hostel” rooms.

With no proper bathrooms, the children bathed in groups using large plastic tubs set up in the classrooms. There were no geysers, so bathwater was heated in two pots on a gas stove. At night, these pupils were forced to relieve themselves in buckets placed at the front of the classrooms, often in full view of their classmates. Additionally, the 100 “hostel” pupils, from grades R to 5, ate their meals in the same classrooms due to the absence of a dining hall.

In 2022, the department constructed a temporary boarding facility which could accommodate only 45 of the school’s 126 learners, leaving the remaining 80 to sleep in classrooms. Today, the temporary facility has deteriorated to the point of being unsafe, with the Department of Labour fining the school R700,000 for its inadequate boarding conditions.

Read more: The critical need to ensure inclusive education for every child

DA education spokesperson Annerie Weber emphasised the critical need for the provincial education department to expedite the establishment of a task team to address the challenges these learners face. Masinakane Special School is not the only special needs school in Mpumalanga struggling with boarding facility challenges. In the past, Platorand Special School was forced to privatise its hostel facilities, making them unaffordable for many parents.

While the department’s 2024/2025 Annual Performance Plan outlined plans to form a task team to assess the financial and regulatory requirements for providing suitable infrastructure, staff, catering and hostel facilities for the learners, the DA was urging the department to expedite this process and implement solutions before the 2025 school year began.

“Special needs learners and their families rely heavily on the teaching, medical and hostel staff to assist these learners who constantly need specialised teaching and care. Failing to accommodate them in 2025 would be catastrophic, leaving vulnerable children exposed to societal risks while their parents are at work,” said Weber.

According to the Department of Basic Education, from 2002 to 2023 the number of special needs schools across the country increased from 295 to 499, while the enrolment of learners in special schools increased from 64,000 to 141,479 nationally. The department gave these numbers in September 2024 during a briefing to the parliamentary basic education committee on the support given to learners with special needs.

Daily Maverick sent questions to the Mpumalanga Department of Education. At the time of publication, it had not responded.

The education divide for children with disabilities

The crisis in Mpumalanga’s special needs education system reflects broader national failures in South Africa's education landscape. In 2015, Human Rights Watch published a report highlighting the gap between the country’s progress on paper for children with disabilities and the reality they face.

The report revealed that more than half a million children with disabilities remained out of school, and many others received substandard education. Key findings included discrimination in school admissions, lack of reasonable accommodations, excessive fees and violence against children with disabilities. Students, particularly those with intellectual disabilities or autism, often received inadequate support in both mainstream and special schools.

In July 2023, the Centre for Child Law (CCL) presented a submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, highlighting the challenges faced by children with disabilities in accessing education in South Africa.

The CCL explained that access was divided into three categories: ordinary public schools, full-service schools and special schools, all overseen by the Department of Basic Education. Despite these options, an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 children with disabilities remained out of school. The CCL described the existing legislative and policy framework governing access to education for these children as “fragmented and outdated”.

The centre further revealed that about 121,500 children with disabilities were enrolled in ordinary schools, 119,500 in special schools, and another 11,500 were stuck on long waiting lists due to a lack of available spaces in public schools. Alarmingly, many parents reported waiting for years, only for their children to “age out” of the basic education system, at which point they were simply removed from these waiting lists.

Vosloo highlighted that there was a significant shortage of schools in Mpumalanga that could accommodate learners with physical disabilities, particularly those who relied on mobility aids such as wheelchairs.

“We have got two schools in the province that accommodates them as day scholars but we have very few schools that can accommodate learners with physical disabilities, so there is definitely a need for at least one school for learners with physical disabilities in each district of the province,” she said. DM