A huge budget has been put aside this year for the development of school infrastructure across the country.
The development of school infrastructure took centre stage in parliament when the Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga, tabled her budget vote in the National Council of Provinces. That came a week after she delivered the budget to the National Assembly.
The NCOP plays a crucial role in the improvement of service delivery through the oversight work that it does. The education budget debate at the NCOP focused on school infrastructure, particularly, in the Eastern Cape province where the mud school structures were in large numbers as compared to other provinces.
“The infrastructure allocation for 2013/14, is R6.630 billion. That will increase to well over R10 billion,” said Motshekga.The Minister told the NCOP that the department through ASIDI project was rolling out newly built schools in the place of mud schools.
“We’re planning to replace 200 inappropriate schools, 132 are in the Eastern Cape, 30 in the Free State, 3 in KwaZulu-Natal, 3 in Limpopo, 5 in Mpumalanga, 1 in the Northern Cape, 1 in North West and 25 in the Western Cape,” explained Motshekga.
The Minister said the department would provide sanitation to 873 schools, water to 448 and electricity to 369.
“Those who had seen the new schools we built in the Eastern Cape will agree they are state of the art institutions with fully-furnished libraries, labs and admin buildings. By end of May, we will hand-over the completed schools to the province so that they can pass them on officially to the people,” said Minister Motshekga.
