Cape Town - Tutor House staff and parents have been left in the lurch after being informed of the abrupt closure of the centre located in Bellville.
In a letter to parents dated September 2, Tutor House directors, Leandra Taylor and Clarissa Horn, informed them of the imminent closure, which came after eight years of operations.
Parents were informed the centre would be closing on September 19, with no reason disclosed.
The centre had around 29 children with fees set at R4500 per month.
Staff said they have still not been paid their September salaries.
Taylor is currently residing in Australia while Horn is teaching in Vietnam.
Two staff members said they are unable to reach the directors as they are blocked on WhatsApp.
Staff were informed formally via a letter on August 8 of the closure and that the company would be liquidated.
According to one staff member, who requested to go by his last name, Coetzee, said he was verbally informed in mid July of the closure, and was told not to inform parents out of fear that they would remove their children from the centre.
Coetzee said a contract was drawn and signed to guarantee that salaries for September would be paid, albeit at a reduced rate due to fewer days worked.
“They were supposed to issue us our UIFs and when we went to the UIF, we discovered they weren’t registered at all for UIF. That also brought-up more suspicions. We discovered they did not pay a cent towards our UIF and they took off the UIF for us.”
One parent, wishing to remain anonymous, said staff tried their utmost to support the children, but no support was given from management.
Since the onset of the year, she said support to staff was “gapingly missing” and the situation became exceedingly bad after Horn had taken over the centre.
For the past two years, there had also been a high turnover of staff.
Taylor said: “The company has been struggling for quite some time. We’ve been trying to keep it afloat but some of the stuff had to start coming out of our own pockets as parents did not pay their school fees.
“There were just a handful of parents that paid fees. Because we told parents we are closing down and they had to start looking for other schools, we just didn’t get the expected amounts to come in.”
Taylor claimed parents did not pay in August for September because they were told that the centre would be closing in September.
Parents were, however, only informed in September of the closure.
A WhatsApp group chat with parents showed several parents stating they had paid in August for the month of September.
While salaries for September have not been paid, the staff were able to provide payslips for September which they still had access to.
Cape Argus