On Cutting Edge this Thursday, 1 April at 21:30 on SABC1, the team investigates the dire situation at Vulingcondvo Primary School near Ermelo in Mpumalanga, in a programme titled 'Caution: potholes in class'.

It is 1 April today but this is no April fool's joke. At Vulingcondvo Primary School, situated about 130 km from Ermelo in Mpumalanga, learners fall and break their legs in classrooms. If these classrooms were national roads, an outcry from motorists would have reached politicians at an alarming speed. But Vulingcondvo is a rural school that was built by then homeland leader of kaNgwane, Dr Enos Mabuza, situated in the middle of nowhere at Glenmore village.

Cutting Edge talks to members of the school governing body who says they tried to minimise the risk of their children’s books getting wet from the rain – not afterschool or before school starts. Parents say the rain falls onto their children right inside the classroom – which leads to them not attending all their lessons because they are sent home. The mealiemeal sacks and card boxes they used to replace a ceiling in some classes has also fallen apart. Rural and poor as they are, parents have been writing letters to the provincial department of education since 2004 – but not a single response came forth.

Babe Mokoena, who has been a member of the school governing body for 12 years, says parents are now threatening to bit them up due to frustration with the condition of the school – a safety and health hazard that Cutting Edge has not seen before.

While learners at Vulingcondvo brace themselves for yet another cold winter in a school without windows or a roof, Mpumalanga government has pulled all stops to make sure their province remains on the minds of 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer lovers long after the final whistle. As Cutting Edge we ask: is there a chance government here got their priorities completely wrong? What about the future generations of this province? What about the education of rural poor learners?

'Caution: potholes in class' is written and produced by Thuli Nhlapo; filmed by Sandile Mchunu; and edited by Buyani Mthembu