About 650 teachers picketed at the KwaZulu-Natal education department’s head office in Pietermaritzburg on Friday‚ complaining about severe levels of overcrowding in the province’s schools. In one case at a rural school outside Nkandla‚ 120 pupils share a single classroom. Many township schools have more than 70 pupils per class‚ said South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) deputy secretary Bheki Shandu.The picket – part of protest action that will culminate with a march to the department’s head office in Pretoria later this month – comes just a day after the KZN education department responded to a Democratic Alliance parliamentary question confirming that more than 380 schools in the province were overcrowded.Shandu said the protest was “very successful”.“We were able to pull together a large crowd of our members‚ who collectively said ‘no’ to overcrowded schools. If you look at the sizes themselves‚ they cannot accommodate the number of students. This is on top of conditions that made individual learning extremely difficult‚” he said. He said the protest had been scheduled to take place after midday to ensure disruptions‚ if any‚ were minimal. - TMG Digital..