Education Department faces legal action early in 2014

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

Government's programme to eradicate mud structure schools in the Eastern Cape has come under fire for being woefully behind schedule as well as being shrouded in mystery.

That's according to the Grahamstown-based Legal Resources Centre, which is taking action on behalf of the Child Law Centre and five schools in Libode, Mount Frere, Butterworth, Dutywa and Tsolo.

LRC attorney, Cameron McConnachie, says many mud schools are not included in the master list of schools that make up government's Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative, Asidi.

He says there's large scale confusion about what's going on with the programme.

McConnachie says "the application was served on the state attorney's office on 10 January 2014" and "also aims to secure emergency relief for the applicant schools by obtaining temporary infrastructure for them to alleviate the desperate conditions that the learners face.'

He says "the lack of planning by the department has resulted in chronic underspending of the R6 billion "School Infrastructure Backlog Grant" that was earmarked for the Eastern Cape," adding that "while National Treasury has approved the roll-over of some of the unspent funds, other funds have been redirected to other state programs, which is a tragedy for learners at mud schools."

Ann Skelton, Director of the Centre for Child Law states in her founding affidavit that the application "does not seek to ignore or undermine what progress has been made in terms of the ASIDI, even if that progress has been slow. The critical issue however is the absence of concrete, publicised plans for the future of the programme."

"Many schools identified as mud schools recorded on the ASIDI list have no idea of or when they are going to be replaced. Investigations by the CCL and the LRC's offices have revealed that at least 36 schools are on the ASIDI list but have no idea of this fact" says Skelton.

"Due to the dire conditions that many schools are in, the schools' governing bodies are often forced to fund desperately needed infrastructural improvements using a mixture of money raised by the community, and portions of the school's budget earmarked for other line items such as learner and teacher support material, school nutrition, or non-education consumables. This places extreme pressure on indigent rural communities that can ill-afford to make donations to school building projects. It also results in schools having to forego essential materials."