DBE working to address overcrowding in schools, says Motshekga
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says overcrowding remains a challenge in public schools across the country, but she believes her department has a plan to address the issue.
Motshekga says the department has made a direct application to National Treasury for funds to assist provinces in tackling the lack of classrooms to accommodate pupils.
During an oversight visit to four schools in Cosmo City in the north of Johannesburg on Wednesday, Motshekga told the media that her department approached National Treasury last year for funding towards an intervention programme aimed at addressing the shortage of classrooms, which contribute to overcrowding in schools.
The learner-to-teacher ratio in classrooms should ideally be 35:1, however, in some schools including the Cosmo Secondary School that Motshekga visited, there can be up to 60 pupils per class.
“If you go to a school and you need four classrooms, you don’t need a whole school, you can use local builders to build those four classrooms. So, as soon as the financial starts we’ll have what we call the SIPOS, which is a special initiative to deal with overcrowding in our schools. So, we have a plan,” she explains.
READ: Cosmo City parents frustrated as GP scrambles to place pupils
The minister says while infrastructure is a provincial competency, the national department has had to step in when the need arises.
“As national, we only deal with norms and standards, but what would normally happen is that when there is a crisis like when there were mud schools and there were pit toilets, we were given special responsibility. But it’s not our mandate as national, we don’t even have the capacity as national to deal with those things – we have to outsource and get other people to help us.”
At the same time, Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane says schools across the province have found creative ways to avoid turning pupils back, especially in high intake areas.
“We are not living in ordinary times. We have a huge infrastructure backlog. But where we are now we are required to find innovative ways to ensure that we have all our children of school-going age in schools.”
Chiloane outlined plans to renovate and utilise empty classrooms at colleges, while Motshekga says some schools have had to use churches in the interim.
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