The Eastern Cape’s plan to close 123 schools in the coming financial year has brought renewed attention to a problem that has been building quietly in many rural communities: what happens when there are no longer enough children to keep a school open?
The provincial Department of Education says a further 300 schools could be affected by rationalisation in the years ahead, as declining learner numbers make it increasingly difficult to justify maintaining some schools in their current form.
The department says the process is intended to consolidate under-enrolled schools, improve the distribution of teachers and resources, and ensure that public money is directed towards schools that can provide sustainable education.
But for communities where a school is often more than a place of learning, the decision carries consequences that cannot be measured simply by the number of learners in a classroom.
For some rural children, the closure of a nearby school could mean a longer journey every morning, greater reliance on scholar transport and, in some cases, leaving home much earlier to reach a larger school.
According to an article by Inside Education, Eastern Cape education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said the department was aware of the effect that closures could have on rural communities.
“The rural areas will be impacted. The department has looked into the rationalisation with other officials, including those from the Department of Transport and the Department of Education. These will ensure that schools are merged and transport is provided accordingly,” said Mtima.
The department’s argument is rooted in the way schools are funded and staffed. When learner numbers fall significantly, schools may struggle to justify the number of educators and other resources allocated to them. Maintaining numerous very small schools can also spread already limited resources thinly across the province.
“The unviable schools are schools that have got lesser numbers leading to lesser resources. We resource based on learner numbers. Once learner numbers are dwindling, we will not have enough educators, and there’s not going to be enough resources,” Mtima added.
In the 2024/25 provincial education budget documentation, the department reported that 112 schools had been closed after being identified as falling below the permissible enrolment norm, while another 109 schools had been aligned under the rationalisation programme.
The problem is closely connected to the changing population patterns of the province. Previous reporting has highlighted the movement of families and learners from rural areas towards urban centres such as Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay, leaving some rural schools with increasingly small enrolments.
When closing a school changes a community
For parents in affected communities, however, the issue is not simply whether a school has enough learners to remain open.
A local school can determine how far a child has to travel, how much time a family spends getting that child to class and whether parents can realistically monitor their schooling. This is particularly important in rural areas, where roads and public transport can already be unreliable.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Eastern Cape, warned in 2025 that school rationalisation should not take place without first establishing that affected learners have safe transport or alternative accommodation. The party also raised concerns about the availability of scholar transport in the province.
The history of school closures in the Eastern Cape suggests that this debate is unlikely to end with the closure of the 123 schools identified for the coming financial year.
With hundreds more schools potentially affected in the years ahead, the province faces a difficult task: finding a way to make an overstretched education system financially and administratively sustainable without making rural learners pay the price for where they live.
For the department, rationalisation is about putting resources where they are most needed.
For families, it is about something more basic — whether their children can still get to school safely, every day, and without the closure of a local school turning education into a longer and harder journey.
