Funding warning to non-paying schools
Education Department may in future settle municipal bills directly
KWAZULU-NATAL Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu has threatened to withhold funds from schools that are unable to pay their water and electricity accounts to municipalities, saying such schools were proving to be a “financial nightmare” for the department.
Tabling the department’s R57 billion budget at the KZN Legislature on Friday, Mshengu noted that there was a growing number of schools whose municipal accounts were in arrears.
“The department is also spending a lot of money bailing out schools who are owing on their domestic accounts. This is unsustainable and must be stopped,” said Mshengu. He indicated that the department would be more hands-on in dealing with the challenge in future.
“We will be embarking on auditing all the schools that owe on their domestic accounts and where the need arises, the department will withhold such monies in future and pay domestic accounts directly from head office.”
Last week The Mercury reported that eThekwini Municipality had disconnected services to some Durban schools over unpaid accounts.
The MEC acknowledged that this year’s budget was a difficult one, especially after the floods that ravaged large parts of the province a few weeks ago.
“Some of our school infrastructure was damaged. Sadly, 64 learners, one educator and one food handler lost their lives as a result of floods,” Mshengu said.
He told the sitting that the department had developed a three-pronged approach for the restoration and rehabilitation of all the school infrastructure that had been damaged by the floods.
He said it would be implemented by schools or school governing bodies using funds from Norms and Standards. In some instances the restoration and rehabilitation will be implemented through the districts and in some cases through implementing agents.
Some of the targets set by the department for the year include:
♦ Eradicating pit latrines at the 1 377 schools that were identified. ¡ Introducing robotics as a new subject.
♦ Training more principals and deputy principals on ways to better manage schools.
♦ Rolling out an Information and Communications Technology programme with 54 schools already identified.
♦ Establishment of robotics laboratories at 9 schools while piloting coding and robotics as a subject.
Providing visualisers to 120 schools to effect online facilitation of virtual learning.
Mshengu expressed concern that while the Early Child Development (ECD) portfolio has been moved from Social Development to the Department of Education, the ECD function shift was followed by reduced grant funding, a move which, according to the MEC, would put a strain on the department’s capacity to at least maintain this new function.
He also listed seven school buildings that have now been completed across the province. According to the MEC a total of 77 041 educators – among them principals, deputy principals, departmental heads and post level one teachers – were trained on the new performance management system for school-based educators.
In addition to this, 889 Foundation Phase teachers had also been trained in digital skills. The programme is aimed at improving teachers’ skills in remote teaching and learning.
Mshengu told the sitting that the department was in the process of developing a new, user-friendly call centre in order to ease communication between the department and its stakeholders, especially the public. He said the move was prompted by the realisation that the current system was not working well.
“Over the years, the existing call centre has been deemed ineffective despite available personnel responsible for receiving and ensuring timeous resolution of complaints logged within the unit. Most of the inefficiencies have been attributed to operating an off-line or manual system which is unable to track, trace and follow up on queries.”
He said the inefficiencies had tainted the reputation of the department. As part of improving systems, the MEC added, the department had started the process of setting up a modern contact centre with a view to enhance service delivery and monitoring.
“As we continue to be innovative in our approach, a large volume of queries are likely to be received. Schools or individuals are expected to contact the department seeking assistance with regards to systems or devices that have recently been deployed.”
He said the department remained committed to registering an even higher matric pass rate this year despite the setback of the floods which had disrupted learning at some schools.