Special needs education in W Cape boosted by R1bn allocation

MORE than R1 billion of the 2016/17 provincial education budget has been earmarked for special needs education.

Among other things, the allocation would be spent on extra classrooms at some of the province’s special needs schools.

During her budget speech last week, Education MEC Debbie Schäfer said the allocation to special needs education had increased by more than R30 million since last year.

Her spokeswoman Jessica Shelver said the increased allocation would help to provide additional support to blind and visually- impaired pupils and learning and teaching material for schools for the deaf.

“It was also allocated towards special needs education infrastructure to upgrade facilities and to buy mobile units to reduce the waiting time of children for places in special schools.”

Glenbridge, Mispah and Alpha special schools would receive extra classrooms.

The construction of new buildings for the Rusthof special school in Strand was expected to be completed during the year, while new buildings for the Cheré Botha special school in Bellville should be completed in the following financial year.

“The Western Cape already leads the country in the provision of special needs education for high needs learners in special schools and increasingly for low and moderate support needs learners in our inclusive ordinary schools.

“As a result there is a growing demand for access to our special needs schools in the Western Cape,” said Shelver.

“We will continue, as far as possible, to make provision for the ever increasing number of learners who experience barriers to learning in innovative ways by strengthening existing special schools and developing full-service schools so that more learners in the mainstream can benefit from inclusive education and specialised education support services.”

Jonavon Rustin, provincial secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, said the department should aim to increase the number of mainstream schools in poorer areas provided inclusive education, which meant that they could also accommodate pupils with special needs.

TUESDAY MARCH 22 2016

The Western Cape Education Department has received a total budget allocation of R19.2bn for the 2016/17 financial year.

About 75 percent of this budget would be spent on compensation for teachers and other employees.

Schäfer said R1.4bn would be spent on infrastructure development, R315.3m to the school feeding programme, R307.4mfor e-learning, R373m towards the maintenance of school buildings and R30m to the Safe Schools programme.

R46.3mhas been set aside to compensate schools for fee exemptions provided to parents who could not afford the fees.