City donates property for ‘educational purposes’ to Gauteng Province

The City has stepped up to improve education in Gauteng and has donated land for this purpose.

Leah Knott, MMC for Economic Development, said the core mandate of the City does not include the provision of education, however, it is greatly concerned by the lack of educational facilities. Therefore, the City of Johannesburg is facilitating the release of properties that will help provincial government to construct more schools.

“[The lack of facilities] resulted in the province working overtime to place approximately 30 000 children through schools in January, roughly 17 000 due to preferred schools being fully capacitated,” she said.

“Despite many of these being allocated, this has resulted in overcrowded classrooms across Gauteng, many children being schooled quite some distance from their homes and some children who have not been allocated, will remain at home.”

Knott said the City must support the education of young people in Joburg.

“As a City, we believe that education is the key to unlocking the potential our youth has to offer.”

Council recently released properties across the City, such as Pennyville, Turffontein and Lehae to the Gauteng Province in order for them to be able to provide proper educational facilities to local communities.

“The City of Johannesburg is delighted to donate and transfer land to the Gauteng Province in order to assist the province in addressing the urgent need of enhancing the education system for a better future for all and confirming its commitment to the Executive Mayor, Herman Mashaba’s, 10-point plan,” Knott said.

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