DURBAN - THE Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, has promised to address the issues affecting schools in KwaZulu-Natal as soon as possible, following damage to infrastructure and learning material as a result of the floods.
Motshekga was addressing the media during her visit to Brettonwood High School in Durban yesterday as part of her assessment of the damage suffered by schools in the various districts.
She said the department would do its best to get the schools fully functional.
“We will open schools where it is possible to open and assist schools to settle down as soon as possible.
“Where we can’t (open) we will have to send them to neighbouring schools and centres.
“For now we are assessing what the damages are, what is possible under the circumstances and what we need to do where we are unable to really send kids back to school for normal learning,” she said.
Motshekga added that she would be visiting the schools that were in inaccessible areas.
“What we are working on is to establish who of those learners from those areas are able to go to school and what we can do.
“Obviously, we have to consider remote learning, but also take into account the possibilities and the resources that are available in those various areas. These are the details we are currently examining,” said Motshekga.
A psycho-social services programme, led by the Department of Social Development, has been developed, which aims to provide information on other challenges faced by students.
The feedback received would allow the Department of Education to gauge the number of orphaned and displaced students. She said that it was paramount for schools to open soon as it would give clarity on the number of affected pupils and the extent of the damage. The minister, together with the MEC would then use this information to establish a clear picture and way-forward by Friday, which would then be announced on Monday.
Motshekga called on community members, teachers and parents to lend a hand to fast track the clean-up operations so that normal teaching could resume.
Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu said the 124 extensively damaged schools would require a lot of money to get up and running again.
“The preliminary figure currently stands at R442 million and that is for infrastructure. We are quantifying those figures now but definitely they will go up. That is why we said all our schools must open today but we were mindful that not all schools can commence with teaching and learning, but it was important for them to open so we can start quantifying the damage that has been done, but also getting exact numbers of how many teachers are affected and how many learners are affected so that our decisions going forward are based on verified and credible information,” said Mshengu.
He said more needed to be done to prepare the students for examinations due to the lost time.
“Our focus is on fixing the damage and attending to the students who lost everything and cannot get to schools because of damaged bridges and roads.
“It is not only students that were affected, but it is also teachers.
“We are hopeful that since the rain has stopped, we will make progress. We will begin with resources for teaching and learning, where infrastructure is damaged, we will send mobile classrooms in the interim.”
Amahle Luthuli, a Grade12 pupil, said that the flooding did not only cause them to lose time, but it also damaged their learning resources as they had left some of their books and portfolios at school.
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