When our children are not placed in schools close to where we live, it costs us money.
That is why I am choosing to cover this topic in this personal finance column.
Without fail, every year we find thousands of pupils – especially in Grade 1 and Grade 8 – who are not placed in schools within the Western Cape.
I am sure it happens in other provinces as well.
I live in the Western Cape and both my children attended public schools, therefore I write from what I know to be true.
Every year thousands of anxious parents have to take off hours, even days, from much-needed low-paying jobs to sort out schooling for their children.
They do this, because it matters where our children go to school – especially in the areas where we live.
If someone lives in Tafelsig, and their child gets placed in a school in Bridgetown, who is expected to foot the travelling costs of that learner?
Who will keep that child safe when they have to take public transport and risk being robbed or worse, raped and killed, simply because they are placed in a school kilometres away from where they live?
Will the Western Cape Education Department bear that responsibility? I don’t think so!
With many misplaced and unplaced learners coming from homes that are dependent on social grants, the logic behind many of these placements just doesn’t make sense.
According to Vanessa le Roux, activist, founder and coordinator of Parents for Equal Education SA (PEESA), this situation predominantly affects learners from poor communities.
She says: “The unfortunate reality is that the WCED is more concerned about their brand than taking seriously the rights of poor learners.
“We see double standards even in the manner in which they handle schools. What shocks me is the stats they throw around, without anyone questioning them on whether the previous promises they made were delivered on.
“At the beginning of this year, they promised us over 500 new teaching posts. Were these posts advertised, where were they advertised, and were these teaching positions filled?”
Le Roux adds: “They continue with promises of additional classes and schools, yet many of these schools are only scheduled to be handed over in March.
“Our academic year starts in January, what will happen to these learners until then? Each and every year, we see learners who deep into the school year have not been placed.
“The WCED says one thing to sound competent, but a whole different story plays out in reality. The stakes are way too high to take the education of our children lightly.”
She says the only way forward is to make more schools available to parents and learners.
“The only way to address this crisis is to build schools, which they are not doing. What makes all of this worse is that the WCED has a ‘take-it, or leave-it attitude’.
“As long as they can tick the boxes, they actually don’t care where your children go to school, or how they get there.”
She concludes: “Our children are being set up for failure, from all angles. We don’t need PR spin, we need an education department that is willing to listen, involve all stakeholders, join hands and make this a collective effort.”
I would go one further than Le Roux and say that we need officials within the top structures of the WCED, who are not disconnected from the real lives of the learners and parents who are affected by their decisions.
Sadly, I have the feeling that only when their own children have to risk being robbed on a Golden Arrow bus, or stand the real chance of being raped and horribly hurt, will they understand.
Perhaps they will be less disconnected when their own children have to take taxis to the Mitchells Plain Town Centre, and from there to the Hanover Park or the Bellville taxi rank, to get to areas they have never been to.
And then still have to wade through filth which surrounds most of our poor schools, every single day, simply to get a basic education.
With the cost of living continuously rising, parents are having to decide whether their children have food to eat, or transport money to get to school kilometres away from where they live, while the WCED continues to get on their soapbox and tell the masses how fabulously they are doing with their budget.
Sadly, the thousands of poor, misplaced and unplaced learners who are deprived of an education at the beginning of every school year tells a different story.
We need to stop turning on principals and teachers and on each other, and rather have the guts and will to take this fight to the highest levels.
It’s utter madness that our children have to be victims of a national government that can’t provide electricity and a provincial government that can’t provide education.
Dear Western Cape Education Department and the DA, the ruling party in the Western Cape – stop using the incompetence of national government as a free pass to not deliver on the promises that you make.
Put your money where your mouths are.
Make available the prime land that you sell to rich private developers, to build the schools, brick ones, not containers you wouldn’t let your own children shiver and sweat in.
Employ more good teachers. Clean our schools and the spaces around them. Protect our teachers and learners.
Utilise your much bragged about budget correctly, stop with the PR spin and dismissive attitude, and do your job.
Hou op met die “bek-werk” and get our children placed.
The votes of the poor count too.
Western Cape Education Minister David Maynier’s response:
The Western Cape Education Department has just announced the biggest, fastest, and most ambitious school infrastructure delivery programme in years, which aims to deliver 842 new classrooms for the 2023 school year.
We are in a position to do so as a result of a significant budget increase, along with having greater flexibility in implementing our infrastructure programme.
The number of learners in our province’s schools has grown by an average of 17 900 learners every year for the past five years. Accommodating these new entrants alone would require the construction of 20 new schools each year.
But there are a number of other factors affecting school infrastructure, such as the backlog in provision from past years which has led to crowded classrooms.
We also have a very old portfolio of infrastructure, having inherited many buildings from the apartheid era that need maintenance and replacement.
These needs must be weighed against the need for new infrastructure, despite the current projections that the average increase in learner numbers will continue.
Our province continues to draw new entrants to our school system, as parents seek our better economic opportunities and a higher quality of education, and we must make provision for this pattern to continue.
The 842 classrooms planned, which would provide 26 000 extra places in our schools, are spread over a number of different types of projects. These include:
- 3 brick and mortar new and replacement schools in Moorreesburg, Malmesbury, and Lotus River
- 5 new mobile schools in Klapmuts, Lwandle, Tafelsig, and Mitchell’s Plain;
- 645 additional classrooms at existing schools; and
- 7 Rapid School Build Programme projects in Delft, Atlantis, Rivergate, Lwandle, Wallacedene, Hout Bay, and Century City.
As we outlined to the Standing Committee on Education, we have already completed 164 classrooms planned for next year, and a further 510 are scheduled for completion by January 2023, and the final 168 are due to be completed by March 2023.
The Rapid School Build Programme is an exciting new infrastructure programme which seeks to brings together various stakeholders with the aim of developing and building 7 schools within six months to accommodate up to 3 200 learners.
The management, speed and cooperation in the Rapid School Build Programme differentiate it from typical projects.
We are using new building technologies, like the Moladi technology which uses frames to mould permanent concrete walls. When I saw the speed at which the Moladi classrooms were going up at Hindle High School last month, and how beautiful the completed ones at Westridge Secondary School look, I was filled with a sense of optimism and purpose.
Our contractors have been very receptive to the programme, and will be working through the traditional builders’ holidays to help us deliver more places for learners. I visited Saxonsea High School last week, where contractors are working into the night to deliver a beautiful new Junior High School campus in record time.
The progress in just over a month is astounding.
All of these new classrooms will of course need teachers to teach in them. Earlier this year, we announced one of the largest increases in the Basket of Posts in quite some time, allowing us to appoint up to 1 143 extra teachers for the 2023 school year.
We are also offering permanent posts to up to 500 qualified Grade R teachers already employed in our schools in a subsidised post, to retain their skills in the system and expand our provision of Grade R.
We are aware that delivering infrastructure at this rate is not an easy task, and that there are many risks. Any disruption or delay will deprive learners of places next year, so I hope that we can all work together to prioritise the delivery of school infrastructure for our children.
But this is not a reason not to try.
I want us to have more beautiful, safe, inspiring schools that deliver great results in poor communities, so that we deliver better opportunities, and brighter futures, and indeed, hope, for our learners.
*Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and does not reflect the views or position of the Daily Voice.