‘Lack of school toilets a health hazard’
year massive financial and human resources were devoted to developing young minds, yet an adequate return on these investments was not being seen.
“The department has received R465 million over the 2018 MTEF for the provision of pupil transport to qualifying pupils, yet there is no indication that it is ready and willing to implement the pupil transport function smoothly, effectively and efficiently.”
She pointed out that 10% of qualifying pupils in the Province were not benefiting from pupil transport.
Meanwhile, a quarter of infrastructure projects currently being budgeted for should have been completed already.
“The hostel at the Batlharo Tlhaping Secondary School in John Taolo Gaetsewe was supposed to have been completed in 2014 already. The department is now paying for projects which should have been done and handed over to schools already,” said Stanfley.
“A safe schooling environment is also needed for pupils to succeed and it is disappointing to note that the department has, once again, made no provision for the implementation of school safety programmes stemming from the National School Safety Framework.”
Stanfley added that with the proper management of the resources available, “much more can and should be done to ensure that all of pupils receive the highest possible quality of education in the Province”.
In its budget speech, Cope pointed out that two critical issues that needed priority attention were early childhood development and the number of teachers in the classroom.
“It is a profound challenge that the department can offer Grade 1 pupils who have received formal Grade R education to only 82% of the children. What will happen to the remaining 18% of children,” Cope’s Pakes Dikgetsi asked.
“The added challenge is the quality of Grade R practitioners who are under qualified in the majority of cases.
“The department plans to provide only 10% or 77 out of 770 practitioners with NQF Level 6 qualification. Is this the reason why parents prefer to send their children to expensive private schools?”
Dikgetsi added that the matter of adequate teacher-pupil ratios as a result of diminishing resource allocation has been raised for some time.
“Cope believes that no child must be left behind to receive quality education which taxpayers are paying for with their hard-earned taxes. We must make public education first choice and for parents to have confidence that their tax money is put to good use.”