Eds Ministry building new schools in EC - Motshekga

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, says new schools will be handed over to communities in the Eastern Cape by the end of May.

Tabling her department's budget policy speech in parliament on Tuesday, Motshekga, said that her Department has already built several state of the schools in the Eastern Cape.

She told MP's that the Department of Basic Education will be replacing 200 inappropriate schools, 132 of which are in the Eastern Cape.

Meanwhile, opposition parties took aim at Motshekga during debate on her budget vote on Tuesday.

DA MP, Annette Lovemore, said despite an education budget of billions, the system did not work.

"Despite a budget of R17.6 billion, and a slew of policies, your education system does not work. If you believe it does, I'm afraid you are in denial. "Admit failure. Until you do, we will never make the massive changes that are required for this country to succeed," Lovemore said.

In her budget speech Motshekga said, on matric results, that there had been "sustained improvement" last year, and she suggested the pass rate would rise to more than 75 percent this year.

"This is a result of systemic interventions for strengthening and raising performance in all levels of the system. The matric pass rate [was] 73.9% in 2012, and I'm quite confident that our target of 75% is well within reach."

Referring to the recently-released National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (Needu) report, she conceded she was "worried about low levels of reading and writing in the foundation phase".

Among the report's findings are that many public school teachers lack knowledge of their subject, knowledge of the curriculum, and knowledge of how to teach their subject.

Deputy Basic Education Minister Enver Surty agreed "massive change" was needed in basic education.

In terms of the latest basic education budget, tabled by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan earlier this year, the department has been allocated R17.6bn for 2013/14; R19.9bn for 2014/15; and, R23bn for 2015/16.