Minister Grant Reports on Replacement Plan Progress and Success

Media Statement by Donald Grant, Minister of Education

In 2010, I announced the Western Cape Government's infrastructure plan. This plan included, amongst other things, the replacement with brick and mortar structures, over a three-year period, of 20 schools that were built with inappropriate materials.

In most instances, these structures are made from wooden or chipboard materials that were built during the apartheid era.

Two years into this plan, the WCED can proudly report on its progress.

Replacing inappropriate structures requires building a new school on the existing property. In some projects, the new structure is built adjacent to the old structure; therefore learners continue to use the premises of the old school while building is taking place. In other instances, the placement of alternative accommodation such as mobiles is required for learners during the building process. The old inappropriate structures are torn down to make way for the new building site.

Replacing inappropriate structures carries extra costs than building a new school on a new site as one has to take into consideration costs such as demolition fees to tear down existing structures. These costs vary from project to project and we have allocated to each project, approximately, an additional R3.5 million on top of the new building costs to make provision for this. Erecting provisional mobile units to house the learners while the building process is underway also carries further costs.

Since the announcement of this plan, we have made excellent progress in delivering our targets.

Eight schools have already been completed. These are:

In the 2012/2013 year, we plan to complete a further 13 schools. These are:

Once these schools have been completed, the Western Cape Government would have succeeded in building 21 replacement schools in the province in three years.

This exceeds our original target!

This means that around 23 000 learners will now have the opportunity to learn in a more suitable and safe environment where quality teaching and learning can take place.

One of these schools is Oaklands Secondary School in Lansdowne.

After 57 years of teaching and learning in an old wooden, chipboard structure, learners, for the first time at this school, had the opportunity to learn in a brand new brick and mortar structure at the beginning of the 2012 school year.

The new school building accommodates 1 200 learners and costed R29.5 million.

The new school includes 27 classrooms, two computer rooms, a library, school hall (which is still being completed), new admin building, new staff/visitor parking, five laboratories and two specialist classrooms.

Additional sports facilities are to be built on the old existing site in the coming months.

I am very excited for this school and the school community. They deserve these new facilities after so many years.

I am also pleased that this has come on the back of a massive increase in the 2011 National Senior Certificate results. The school increased its pass rate from 59% in 2010 to 90.2% in 2011. This is an impressive achievement!

So we have much to celebrate today and we hope that these new school facilities will translate into even more improved and sustainable results in the years to come!

In this manner we are making education in the Western Cape Better Together.

View the attached map of replacement schools.