The month of April will see the department opening five new schools in the province and outlining plans for the four expected to be built soon. The department’s spokesperson, Geoffrey van der Merwe, says they have noted concerns regarding the lack of schools in remote areas, transportations issues faced by several pupils who have to walk many kilometres to get to schools and placement issues they often experience at the beginning of each academic year. MEC Martha Bartlett will on Thursday be opening the Karos Primary School after parents and community members in this rural area complained of not having a school nearby, which led to their children being forced to brave extremely hot and cold weather temperatures on a daily basis to get to schools. Van Der Merwe told OFM News that the department has built this school to the tune of R60 million, and learners from this community and neighbouring ones will no longer have to travel long distances to get to schools.

The department just a week ago made headlines over allegations that thousands of learners in the area of Kakamas were experiencing problems with transport to and from schools due to drivers not being paid by the department. 

It was reported that over 2 000 children in and around the Kakamas area, ranging from Grade 1 to matric, who rely on approximately 40 buses to transport them to school, missed close to four weeks of schooling in the first term and were still affected by the bus drivers’ strike over non-payment of the services rendered to the department.

Van der Merwe has in a reply to OFM News’ set of questions said “the Northern Cape Department of Education can confirm that according to our records of learner transport routes in the ZF Mgcawu, out of the operators on 44 routes, only [operators on] 7 routes have not been paid. These 7 routes represent a total of 6 operators”.

He said the department informed the operators that the outstanding payments will be received on 12 April 2019, and that the learners will be back at schools as of this week and that they are continuing to engage learner transport operators in the province to ensure that they provide a safe and reliable service for deserving learners to and from school.

He highlights that the opening of the five schools will assist in this regard and that the department commits to make transport available to learners who still need to make use of it.

OFM News