• Tweet

Picture taken from www.joburgnews.co.za

RELATED ARTICLES

• Motshekga job 'is not done yet'
• Gang feud closes 59 schools
• 'Raped' boy stays away from school
• KZN probes graft in school nutrition programme
• School Bullies shown the door
• 70 pupils to get top schooling

Schools in Gauteng have begun receiving bicycles from the department of transport's Shova Kalula project, the provincial education department said.

Beeld newspaper reported on Friday -- with an accompanying photo -- that hundreds of brand-new bicycles for this project have been locked at a storage facility in Midvaal in Gauteng.

Provincial education spokesman Charles Phahlane told Sapa that some schools started receiving the bicycles on Thursday.

The project, which began as a pilot in 2001, intended to roll out 260,000 bicycles by the end of the 2009/2010 financial year, according to a document on the transport department's website.

The aim of the Shova Kalula project was to provide transport to people in rural areas to improve access to education.

Phahlane said schools had prepared for the roll out of the project by assessing pupils' ability to ride bicycles, and teaching them road signs and road safety.

When the pupils were deemed ready to safely ride a bicycle, they were issued with a certificate to this effect.

The Beeld reported on Friday that the project aimed to deliver a million bicycles by last year.

The owner of a farm school near Vereeniging told the paper, on condition of anonymity, that hundreds of bicycles for the project had been locked in a warehouse in Midvaal for more than a year.

A photograph accompanying the story shows rows and rows of brand new bicycles, still wrapped in plastic, crammed into the storage facility.

The department of transport could not immediately be reached for comment and the number of bicycles distributed to schools since Thursday could not be confirmed.

Comments

• Sign in or sign up to comment

Fri May 24 23:48:10 SAST 2013 ::

Aug 24, 2012

Voetzek

we dont read bycles but books, Eishhh our goverment
Report Abuse

Aug 24, 2012

KatakataEmaotoAditshepe

What do gausteng pupils do with the bicycles because per the artcile the project was set for rural areas where there's no transport for pupils to reach their schools in time.
Stop wasting our money on people who dont seek help lona maan.
Report Abuse

Aug 24, 2012

SharpSharp

When you make you report u must also indicate number of learners died bcos of the biycle accidents.
Report Abuse

Aug 24, 2012

Dumpster

This is nothing other than a tender-motivated expenditure. Is just that Sowetan journalism sometimes lacks curiosity. An important question would have been "HOW MUCH EACH BYCYCLE COST?". An answer to this will be revealing. Clealry after one year some kids will take this home or they will be broken. Then is another tender again. By the end of say five years we will have spent far more than the osst of building a school or providing a more common means of transport. Bycycles take South Africa back to the ancient tiimes and tenderpreneures do not care a damn.
Report Abuse

Aug 25, 2012

skwamasamabele

Voetsek- cycling will eliminate our ample backsides, increase the flow of oxygen to the brain, and will keep our kids active, instead of eating MacDonalds and KFCs without execise. SA is a morbidly obese country and something needs to be done, pronto
Report Abuse

Read all 5 comments