SOUTH AFRICA COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM SCHOOLSCape Argus - PC thieves crash equal education for allPC thieves crash equal education for all

June 1, 2005

Thieves have targeted New Eisleben Secondary School in Crossroads twice in the past two months and made off with several computers.

Five computers were stolen in an April burglary and another eight were stolen on Monday night. Several others were damaged.

Now the school has only 30 computers for its 1 500 pupils.

Angry teacher Nolubalo Mphayisa said yesterday that she was fed-up with the burglaries, adding that Nyanga police had not responded on Monday as they had trouble finding the school.

"The burglary took place at about 11pm and the school's private security company notified police almost immediately, but they never arrived," she said. "They are sending a bad message to us."

Police spokesman Randall Stoffels said: "As far as we know, the police did respond to the complaint, but now that this allegation has been made, we will investigate internally."

Mphayisa said the thieves bent the burglar bars on a window to gain access.

They then kicked down the doors of the classroom and the administration building to get inside.

Mphayisa added that although most of the computers were taken from the school's computer room, one was taken from the administration building.

Mphayisa said: "We have a problem now because we have lost administrative information."
"We will have to ask the pupils to share computers or split them up into smaller groups, because we don't have enough machines." - Staff Reporter