The Select Committee on Education and Recreation has expressed its unhappiness about the lack of progress regarding the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative, which is aimed at getting rid of mud or inappropriate schools.
This after the Department of Basic Education appeared before the Committee today. The department declared 496 schools countrywide as inappropriate schools. Inappropriate schools lack water, electricity and sanitation. These schools are usually referred to as mud schools. According to the Department’s Deputy Director General Mr Paddy Padayachee, the department had planned to get rid of 50 of these schools, electrify 164, supply water to 188 and deliver sanitation infrastructure to 354 during the 2011/12 financial year.
Mr Padayachee, however, told the Committee that no project had been completed so far, and as a result, no school had been handed to its beneficiaries by the department. The Committee said as long as the department outsourced the implementation of the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure initiative to private companies, no meaningful progress would be made. “The department should be the implementer of the programme, not a private company,” said Ms Mamosoeu Makgate, Committee Chairperson.
Ms Makgate told Mr Padayachee that the Committee was not pleased at all. “This Committee is very disappointed about the non-delivery of appropriate schools to the poorest of the poor,” said Ms Makgate. She said the non-delivery of appropriate schools created an impression that the department did not take education seriously.
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Mava Lukani, Parliamentary Communication Services (PCS)
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Education and Recreation Select Committee unhappy with Department of Basic Education's lack of progress
