Cape Town - With just little over a week left before pupils get back to their school desks, parent groups and unions have reacted with scepticism at the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) ability to speedily place scores of children still without a school.
However, the WCED expected 510 additional classrooms to be completed by the end of the term.
This was nowhere near what was required to have about 6 000 unplaced children in a classroom in the first term, according to Founder of Parents for Equal Education SA (PEESA), Vanessa le Roux.
Education MEC, David Maynier, said contractors worked throughout the builder’s holiday to ensure timeous delivery of the project for the new academic year.
Pupils in the Western Cape will start their first term next Wednesday.
Answering a parliamentary question before the festive period break, Maynier said 15 new schools were currently in progress, which would deliver an additional 26 000 classroom places in the 2023 academic year.
The final 168 classrooms were expected to be completed by March 2023, he said.
Maynier said the number of new classrooms exceeded the delivery of classrooms in previous years and was possible following a R830 million increase in the infrastructure budget in 2022/23.
WCED spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said they would be providing an infrastructure update next week and the department was ready to welcome back teachers, school-based staff and learners.
“Specific details on the infrastructure build will be presented next week following a briefing from our infrastructure team later this week.
“The WCED has prepared well for the start of the new school year with the aim to ensure that teaching and learning begins from day one. For example, schools were provided with the opportunity to order top-up textbooks for the 2023 school year as early as May 2022. The orders were fully delivered to schools by 28 October 2022. This amounted to R62.6 million rand.”
Le Roux said the department had to "stop playing for the gallery with these numbers that they continue providing to the public".
"The matter of unplaced learners is not new. We only see it increase each year. In an earlier statement, the MEC said to address the problem of unplaced learners, at least 20 new schools a year need to be built, and he is correct.
"So to even remotely think that 510 mobile classrooms address the problem, is unrealistic. The first batch of classes by their own admission will only be handed over by the end of January, school starts next week, so thousands of children won't be in a school when the academic starts.
“The next batch will only be handed over by the end of the first term. Over 6 000 children will not be attending school for the first term of the academic year.
We need to know the exact figure of unplaced learners, in order to know what that 1% looks like, " said Le Roux.
Cosatu provincial secretary, Malvern de Bruyn, said they were sceptical that the WCED was prepared for this year’s intake.
“From our side, we know there is always a challenge every year with learner placements and not enough classrooms. It is difficult to say at this stage whether the WCED has done enough but we will see how things progress with the intake. We will also call on the WCED to ensure that there are sufficient and enough classrooms.
“We can’t have a scenario that year after year, learners have to wait until June, and in some cases later than June, to find a place at schools. I think the department has not done enough all these years and we don’t foresee them doing better this time around,” said De Bruyn.
Maynier said the WCED had briefed the Standing Committee on Education on the risks, such as social unrest, availability of building materials and transport, and adverse weather conditions.
“The Rapid School Build programme is enabled by a strengthened delivery model that improves the efficiency in land use planning and better project preparation between government departments to achieve faster development approvals. Together with the assistance of various stakeholders and focused support from municipalities we are overcoming some of the challenges that we have previously faced in designing and constructing new schools,” said Maynier.
Cape Times