According to the provincial spokesperson for Education, Elias Malindi, Education MEC Viola Motsumi took a decision to convene the infrastructure Lekgotla following a meet and greet session that took place across all districts in the province earlier this year. Malindi explained that the aim of the Lekgotla is to interrogate the conditional assessment report of all schools across the province, and also to assess the procurement plans of the departments of Education. This includes also assisting the department to identify factors that continue to contribute to the non-spending of infrastructure conditional grants whereas our learners and educators are still subjected to dilapidated schools which has the potential of compromising their safety. In her opening remarks, at a two days Infrastructure Lekgola which started on Wednesday, Motsumi said the programme will go a long way in assisting the department to speed up the process of providing communities with better schools. She said this Lekgotla should be used as a tool that will monitor the progress made when coming to issues of infrastructure.

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“Almost all our schools are not in good condition, but we have a budget to ensure that we improve the conditions of our schools. We continue to fail our people out there. You look at the schools in Bojanala, and you compare these particular schools with the schools in Ngaka Modiri Molema, it’s something different but those particular schools belong to one department, which is the Department of Education.

Motsumi said the department is spending money on work that is not done on the ground. Earlier this year, Motsumi stated that the infrastructure unit within the department was hard at work in respect of attending to all schools with infrastructural problems. On Friday 14 April 2023, the department launched a R65 million construction project at the Kgosi Shope Secondary School in the Setlhwatlhwe section in Setlagole Village.

ALSO READ: Millions spent to rebuild school in North West

Motsumi handed out six mobile classrooms on Monday at a school gutted by fire in 2019. This after it was revealed that learners of the Tlhakeng Primary School in Kraaipan, a village near Khungwana, were left stranded as they were overcrowded in their classrooms.

ALSO READ: Education intervenes at overcrowded North West school

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