Tag: Department of Education

Learning takes a backseat in Limpopo

Education facilities in Limpopo – including four schools – built at a cost of R143-million are standing empty and being vandalised despite a desperate need for proper infrastructure in the province.

The provincial department of education allocated R106-million for the construction of three circuit offices in 2012 – one in Bochum (R33-million), another in Tshipse (R45-million) and a third in Mapela (R28-million).

The offices were to double as teacher-training facilities. But the buildings are still empty and thieves have begun scavenging metal from them.

A new school for the blind in Mankweng, 40km outside Polokwane, is covered in weeds and vandals have broken doors and windows, and stripped the building of its fittings.

The school has 20 classrooms, two blocks of hostels, two residences, a kitchen and a dining hall. Building was completed in June, and pupils and teachers of Setotolwane School, which had been declared “unfit”, were expected to move in.

Statistics SA released its Focus on Schooling in Limpopo report yesterday, showing that of the 154351 pupils who started school in 2001, only 53.4% wrote matric in 2013. Only 38.3% of them passed the National School Certificate.

In 2012, the department was unable to provide textbooks on time. Deliveries were finally made after the department was taken to court.

Provincial department spokes-man Paena Galane failed to explain why the three circuit offices remained unoccupied.

Asked why the department abandoned the schools in Giyani, Galane said there were not enough teachers or pupils to occupy them.

Source: timeslive.co.za

Soros-funded NGO wants schools without armed guards closed

tikThe Department of Education in the Western Cape says its lawyers are studying a court order by Equal Education forcing it to provide armed guards to five schools affected by gang violence on the Cape Flats.

The order was issued last week and says the guards must be deployed by Monday or the schools would be closed.

On Sunday afternoon, education officials met representatives of the NGO funded by George Soros and the Ford Foundation, Equal Education, the police and other role-players to discuss the matter.

The department spokesperson, Bronagh Casey says, “The papers were served on Friday afternoon. We are very disappointed with how the process was dealt with from a legal perspective. Irrespective of the merits of this case, from a legal point of view the order was served on the department without adequate notice or opportunity to consult our legal team. Our legal team will now study the interim order and will provide advice.”

Violence in the area goes well beyond the capacity of the education department. Researchers say the marked spike gang violence could be related to turf wars resulting from the troubles of Czech fugative and crime boss, Radovan Krecjir.

A veteran gangster said in an interview recently: “You can’t control them [gangsters] any more. They smoke tik. It makes them super-people. This is the monster.”

Absenteeism has increased dramatically due to ongoing gang violence and sometimes only about 200 of 900 learners attend school.

South African police estimate about 100,000 gang members compete for turf and control of the drug trade in the Western Cape province, the bulk of them in the urban sprawl on Cape Town’s eastern outskirts, known as the Cape Flats.

Cape Town, where the DA opposition is in power, is known as the the crime hub of South Africa.

The gang warfare is frustrating efforts to rein in crime in a country where 15.609 homicides, or 30.9 per 100.000 people, occurred in the year ending March 2012, a rate that is more than six times that of the US.

It is still much lower than the murders on white farmers, currently at 36 per 100.000.