DURBAN - THE KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education will no longer build schools based on requests made by communities.
It will, instead, build schools in viable areas and then work to attract pupils to those schools.
The department said it is concerned about the schools that are abandoned, due to population migration.
KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu made the comments during a virtual meeting on infrastructure yesterday. The meeting hosted all nine provinces and was led by the Department of Basic Education.
The department has previously said that hundreds of schools could be closed because they are no longer viable, as there are not enough pupils attending.
Mshengu said the province is facing daunting infrastructure challenges, he said about 70% of the province's schools were in the rural areas and many had infrastructure challenges.
The department is still faced with a growing need for new schools, water challenges, sanitation challenges, and eradicating asbestos from almost 1000 schools.
Mshengu said the department was still battling to fix schools that were damaged by storms in 2014.
He said his department was especially concerned about the schools that are built, only to be abandoned later on because there are no pupils to attend.
“We are concerned about the population migration, that is why we have taken a decision that we will no longer build schools according to community requests, where the community requests that a school be built in an area.
“We are going to start building schools based on research and then we will work on attracting pupils to those areas,” he said.
THE MERCURY