Motshekga outlines progress in fixing schools

The government has renovated at least 2,400 schools since President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (Safe) initiative five years ago to fix 3,398 schools in SA with infrastructure problems.

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga said on Sunday that the completed schools were in Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, some of the provinces hit by various incidents of pupils drowning in pit latrines.

"The death of a child is something really serious and it is unseemly to use that death to cast aspersions at government or paint a picture of an uncaring, under-performing government," she said.

"We want to say to the nation, our work may not be good enough, but a lot has been done and continues to be done on a daily basis.

"The rapid and successful roll-out of grade R in our schools meant that just under 4,000 schools were found to be lacking in either age-appropriate infrastructure, in particular, or inadequate infrastructure in general. We feel it is important that we draw attention to the fact that government has been hard at work to keep the promise the president made at the launch of the Safe initiative." . 

Of the 2,478 completed projects, Motshekga said 184 school projects were allocated to private sector companies and from this figure 117 were completed.  

Motshekga also said the department completed infrastructure at 315 schools from a target of 331 through its Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery initiative (Asidi).  

Launched in 2011, Asidi is a programme meant to eradicate the basic safety norms backlog in schools without water, sanitation and electricity and to replace those schools constructed from inappropriate material (mud, planks, asbestos) to contribute towards levels of optimum learning and teaching.  

Motshekga said 317 schools were provided with electricity, while 1,259 were given water and 1,053 were provided with proper sanitation through Asidi.  

kokam@sowetan.co.za