As the year ends, the local schools prepare for 2023 intakes. Shortage of space has in the past years affected the City of Mbombela negatively.
As part of the plan to alleviate admission challenges within the City, the Mpumalanga Department of Education, in conjunction with its implementing agent, the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport, resolved to constructing a total of 40 additional classrooms in four primary schools.
On November 15, the MEC for education, Bonakele Majuba, the MEC for public works, Mandla Ndlovu, and the executive mayor of the City of Mbombela, Cllr Sibongile Makushe-Mazibuko, took a tour of inspection to assess the progress made with regard to the construction of the 40 classrooms in Laerskool Bergland, Nelspruit Primary, Laerskool Laeveld and Laerskool Nelspruit.
Currently the construction projects are still under way, although at some schools, the classrooms are completed and almost ready for 2023.
According to Majuba, the admission challenge is aggravated as some parents from surrounding townships or villages working in town, prefer that their children attend school in town too, to guarantee their children’s security.
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“This means that as much as priority is given to learners who are residing next to schools, consideration must be given in instances such as these.”
In other cases, schools have converted halls and recreational facilities such as lapas to accommodate learners, and these schools are of the opinion that they would be in a position to free those facilities for their intended purposes now that there are new classrooms at their disposal.
Bennie Pringle, the SGB chairperson for Laerskool Bergland, said in the past years they have taken a considerable number of children and placed them all over the school. “We have brought in our own temporary classrooms, and we have paid a lot of money to accommodate those children, and the contract ends at the end of the year.
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“Hopefully the children in those classes can move to the new building. We have a lot of children in storerooms that we have made classrooms. This building will help them get out of those rooms.
“We have two or three classes available for extra children, but it will not alleviate the issue of all the learners who have applied. We are sitting with a problem of a lot of children that will not be accommodated.”
The school currently has about nine temporary classrooms. Majuba said the other challenge is that as of now, there are no available sites in town that can be considered to build new fully fledged schools on.
“The department has in its plans the establishment and construction of Mbombela City Primary and Mbombela City secondary schools, however, these plans cannot start because there are no allocated sites.”
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