'Damaged school property costs R180m'

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Published Oct 26, 2016

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Cape Town - The Department of Basic Education will be spending at least R180 million in the next three years on "unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure" to repair damaged public schools, National Treasury said on Wednesday.

"R179.907 million for the repair and rehabilitation of schools, and associated costs including for the provision of mobile classrooms, catch-up camps and the replacement of workbooks," Treasury said in the 2016 medium-term budget policy statement.

Treasury said the lion's share of the money, R177 million, would be used to rehabilitate schools and to provide mobile classrooms.

But also taking a slice of the pie would be the replacement of Grade 12 workbooks and additional curriculum support, food for teachers and learners at Grade 12 catch-up camps, as well as travelling costs for visits by national department officials to the camps.

Learners in the newly formed Vuwani-Malamulele Municipality in Limpopo lost at least two months of studying after more than 20 schools were vandalised and torched during community unrest over demarcation issues.

Grade 12 pupils across the country began writing their final year examinations this week. Government forecast that the basic education budget would be R280.6 billion by 2019, maintaining an average of 7.1 percent annual growth rate.

Basic education remained government's largest expenditure priority, sitting at R228.4 billion.

Treasury said the department had awarded 14,343 Funza Lushaka bursaries for initial teacher education within the first six months of this year, exceeding its target because university fees were lower than expected due to the zero fee increases.

Treasury said education accounted for about 40 percent of public-sector employment, and absorbed the largest share of provincial budgets.

African News Agency

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