Refurbishment of Modimolle school in progress

The school was originally moved from Louis Trichardt (now Makhado) at the beginning of 1962 to the newly built school and hostels in Modimolle, where it was renamed after Susan Strijdom, wife of the late prime minister JG Strijdom who died in 1958.

As it is a public school, the national Department of Public Works is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the buildings and the premises. Due to the lack of maintenance the hostel building and other parts of the school have deteriorated over the past decade, to the point where it now holds potential risks for both learners and educators.

The deterioration was brought to the attention of Marlene van Staden, mayor of the Modimolle-Mookgophong Municipality, who visited the school in 2020.

She told The Post that she was shocked to see the critical condition of the school and took it upon herself to find a sponsor in order for the school to be refurbished.

Van Staden said: “For nearly 36 months I engaged with various organisations, wrote letters, had meetings and arranged for oversight visits to the school in order to convince them to invest in this school and its learners. In October we received the exciting news that Transnet South Africa has agreed to assist with the refurbishing and on Thursday 17 November a team of Transnet employees arrived at the school.”

This was made possible through the Transnet Employee Volunteerism Blitz programme that arranged for 48 employees to kick-start the project in November.
Wiets Botes, councillor of the ward in which the school resides, gave the opening and welcoming address.

Together with the school they identified two main target areas that required immediate attention namely the bathroom in the boy’s hostel as well as the technical workshops.

According to Botes the Transnet team painted the interior and under the watchful eye of a professional handyman, laid new tiles in order to restore the bathroom to its original condition.

The refurbishment of the technical workshop will require the conversion of the existing electrical wiring to three phase electricity to ensure compliance with the new machines.

Since no new machinery has been acquired in almost 40 years, Transnet committed to install new technical machinery for each of the electrical, welding and woodwork workshops. Burglar bars will also be installed at all of the windows in the three workshops whereafter the interiors will be painted.

“Transnet is humbled to be in a position to partner with the office of the mayor on this noble initiative. We are cognisant of the potential impact that this intervention has on the sustained future of the learners with learning disabilities, at the school. We believe technical training as an artisan, under the tutorship of diligent and experienced educators, will provide learners with an economically sustainable future”, the Transnet representative said during the opening.

Lolo Selamolela, acting principal of the school, was delighted about this refurbishment. They expressed their gratitude to Molatwane Likhethe, general manager of communications at Transnet, as well as to the Transnet Foundation team led by Susie Mabie, who made this community project possible.

“Since our initial meeting with Transnet (22 June) everybody envisioned the end results whereby learners will be given a better education, as well as an improved hostel for the boys to stay in,” Selamolela said. “We are indeed building a better community and municipality, one step at a time.”

The project should be completed by the team of professionals, before the end of November.