Lwandle is one of the areas set to benefit from the provincial education department’s ambitious school infrastructure delivery programme.
A new mobile high school is currently under construction in the area, along with several other builds across the province at an unprecedented rate.
The greater Lwandle community was delighted the department had listened to its plea for extra classrooms. The planned school, to be named Lwandle High Technical School, is set to accommodate 1 400 learners. (“School, hospital campus proposed,” DistrictMail, 20 May 2021).
Construction at the site on the corner of the N2 and Onverwacht Road started on Monday 1 August.
Kerry Mauchline, spokesperson for provincial education minister David Maynier, confirmed 10 of the classrooms at the high school in Lwandle are already complete and an additional five are under construction. The project is estimated to cost R18 million.
Furthermore, the programme is aimed to deliver 842 additional classrooms with at least 26 000 additional places for learners in the province.
“This number vastly exceeds the delivery of classrooms in previous years and had been made possible with an R830 million increase in the infrastructure budget in 2022-’23, and greater flexibility in implementing our infrastructure programme,” Mauchline explained.
An increase in class numbers is set to have a positive impact on the economy, as the number of teaching posts will also increase.
“Earlier this year we announced one of the largest increases in teaching posts we’ve had in years, with the appointment of up to 1 143 additional teachers,” said Mauchline.
“This means a sufficient number of teaching posts will be allocated to schools in preparation for the completion of additional classrooms, so they will be ready to go when learners arrive.”
The department appealed to parents who have not yet applied for their children at their proposed new schools in 2023 to do so at a district office. “Do not wait until January next year, as this will make it much harder for us to place your child timeously,” Mauchline said.
The department received applications for 117 270 learners for Grade 1 and 8 in 2023, of which 22 113 were received late.
“Since Thursday 3 November we have placed 100 302 of the Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners for 2023, and are in the process of placing 12 786 more learners,” Mauchline said.
“However, this does not take into account the extremely late applications we expect to receive at the end of the year. Last year, we received more than 7 900 extremely late applications for the 2022 school year, most of those arriving after January 2022.”
For this reason, the deparment aims to build many more schools and classrooms, with double the number of new places compared to the number of learners it is still finalising placement for, she related.
