GQEBERHA – After more than a decade of broken windows, missing benches and classrooms stripped by vandalism, learners and teachers at Bethelsdorp Comprehensive School have finally moved into a brand-new facility.

Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane, accompanied by Education MEC Fundile Gade, officially handed over the newly built school on Wednesday, 7 October, marking what the provincial government described as a significant step forward in education infrastructure for the Bethelsdorp community.

“The school belongs to the community,” Mabuyane said.

Gade, who has served as Eastern Cape MEC for Education since May 2019, was candid about the provincial government’s missteps in school infrastructure delivery.

He said basic education in the province had been backlogged and that the government had taken on a number of schools at once, eventually realising that it had overcommitted financially.

“The basic education in the province been backlogged and the government took on number of schools at once and learned that because of overcommitting, no breathing space from financial massive point of view,” Gade said.

A  province learning from its mistakes

Gade said the government then redesigned schools into a multi-skilled, technical landscape — combining technical vocational and occupational vocational skills through what is known as the G-stream model.

The G-stream model refers to a way of organising learners into different streams or pathways based on their abilities, interests and academic needs, allowing pupils to follow technical, vocational or academic routes rather than a single, one-size-fits-all curriculum.

He said the redesign of the academic curriculum focused on the nation’s needs and that the delay had made the government realise that education was not only about getting learners through the academic stages of basic education, but also about equipping them with new skills to help reshape the workforce.

“The redesigning of the academic curriculum focus on nation’s needs. The delay made government realise that not only getting learners through academic passage of basic education, also equipping learners with new skills that will redesign the workforce,” Gade said.

An emotional transition

Jerome Meyer, the school’s principal, said the new facility marked an important milestone for the school, which has about 1,200 learners.

He said the old school building had been intended as a temporary structure but had been used for 54 years.

“The old school building was a temporary-built school for 54 years and it was the previous principal’s hard work and desire to establish the new school facility,” Meyer said.

The transition from the old building to the new facility had been an emotional one for both learners and staff, he said.

Meyer said the school and its facilities were much-needed resources for the community and could play an important role in its upliftment and development.

“In modern society, e-learning is difficult to incorporate daily with no electricity and ‘talk and chalk’ is not always working effectively,” he said.

He added that young learners were technologically adept and that incorporating technology into their daily learning would help enhance e-learning.

Lalagen Brown, a Grade 12 learner at the school, said the new building represents more than fresh paint and solid walls.

She said the new school building would offer learners opportunities that the old facility simply could not provide.

“The new school building will have more benefits for learners such as having privilege of technical classes, playing sports such as soccer, hockey, netball and rugby,” Brown said.

She recalled the conditions learners had endured in the old building, where broken windows left classrooms exposed to the elements and basic equipment was in short supply.

Eighteen more schools on the horizon

The government’s goal is to build 18 more new schools before the end of the next financial year.

Gade said the Head of Department of Education had already started work in Queenstown and the OR Tambo District on redesigning the curriculum.

“People of the province need a quality education system where more learners do maths and physical science,” Gade said.

For the Bethelsdorp community, the opening of the new school closes a long and painful chapter of broken promises — and opens a new one in which learners such as Lalagen Brown can look to the future with the tools, classrooms and playing fields they were denied for so long.

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