Plans for 24 new schools, 800 classrooms in province

TO KEEP up with the growth and expansion of communities and alleviate pressure in overcrowded schools, the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) plans to build 24 new schools over the next three years.

Pupil intake has steadily increased, from 988 547 in 2013 to 1 029 183 this year (2015) – an increase of just more than 40 000 children.

The WCED expects an increase in the number of enrolments in 2016.

WCED spokesman Paddy Attwell said schools will be built in suburbs like Blue Downs, Mfuleni, the Helderberg Basin, Saldanha Bay and Brackenfell, which had seen increased pupil enrolments.

Attwell said the department also plans to build more than 800 classrooms to expand existing schools. The budget set aside for this financial year is R1.4 billion.

“The WCED works according to a three-year infrastructure plan. We update the plan every year to meet expected fluctuations in demand for the forthcoming three-year period,” Attwell said.

The new institutions include 11 primary schools, 11 high schools and two special needs schools. They would be named once new school governing bodies (SGBs) were elected.

“The WCED will also replace 24 schools built of inappropriate materials during this period, while the Department of Basic Education will fund the replacement of 14 schools,” Attwell said.

At the end of the first academic school term this year, 340 pupils in the province had not been placed at a school. Most of these pupils were from Mitchells Plain.

Mitchells Plain Education Forum chairperson Colleen Horswell previously told the Cape Times that at least three more primary schools and one high school were needed to accommodate the growing population.

At the start of this academic year, around 800 Mfuleni pupils from grades R to 7 were taught in a tent as there was no space available at schools in the area.

In Lower Crossroads, 82 children were taught in an informal school as they waited for places in formal schools.

In Wolseley, in the Boland, 115 pupils from different grades were crammed into three classrooms as all schools in the area were full.

This week, Education MEC Debbie Schäfer announced that the pupils have to be enrolled by June 30 for the department to make arrangements to accommodate all pupils.

She also said 200 mobile classrooms were set up in rapidly growing communities across the province this year to accommodate additional pupils. THE consequences of legalising the rhino horn trade are unknown, but it could lock us into a path of a “runaway expanding market”.

This is the view of Alejandro Nadal, economics professor at the University of Mexico, who is critical of South Africa’s bid to ask Cites for permission to legalise the horn trade without research into, or understanding of, the existing illegal market.

He said without this knowledge, claims of the beneficial effects of opening the trade were little more than fair tales.

“We’re not having a civilised, serious, sciencebased debate on these issues,” Nadal said.

He was one of the speakers in a three-day lecture series on wildlife trafficking, organised by UCT’s centre for criminology, The Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime and the Conservation Action Trust.

Nadal said the pro-trade lobby for ivory or rhino horn often put forward the view that legalising the trade would bring down the price, and the illegal trade would be outcompeted. However, proponents did not put forward anything of substance to back up that claim.

“They need to explain exactly why and how prices will drop as a stable supply (of rhino horn) flows into the market.”

What was needed was a rigorous and accurate evaluation of the rhino horn market, with information about the structure of the illegal market, its performance, price formation and dynamics. A literature review showed that this information did not exist.

“We know very little about ownership, the type of firms, the size. Are they diversifying, how are they financed? All of