Nationwide Safe Schools call centres will help keep children safe

The statement below follows a visit by DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, Ian Ollis MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP, and Western Cape Education MEC, Debbie Schafer MPL, to the Western Cape Education Department’s Safe Schools call centre.

Please find attached soundbites in English by DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, Ian Ollis MP, and in Xhosa and Sotho by DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP. Photos of the event can be viewed here, here, here and here.

Today, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, Ian Ollis MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP, and Western Cape Education MEC, Debbie Schafer MPL, visited the Western Cape Education Department’s Safe Schools call centre.

The DA has repeatedly called on the national government to bring together all the relevant departments in an effort to curb violence at schools. The Safe Schools call centre has proved to be successful in doing this and the government must roll it out to all provinces.

The call centre recorded 1034 cases of crime in the 2017/18 financial year, including 27 cases of weapon possession and 214 cases of gang-related shootings and 595 assault cases. There was a 1.6% decrease in crimes reported to the call centre.

The call centre also responds to other concerns involving childrens’ safety including abuse and gang threats, on and off school premises. For example,while the delegation was there, a young learner called in to report an unnatural death she had witnessed.

On a daily basis, between 40 and 75 calls a day are made to the call centre and can be routed to emergency and medical services in an efficient manner.

Establishing similar centres in other provinces is one of our seven school safety demands. South Africans can still co-sign our letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa, calling for an urgent interdepartmental response to school violence and unsafe schools at https://protectourchildren.co.za.

It is high time that we put the safety of our learners first. Children should not have to choose between getting and education and their safety.

President Ramaphosa can prove that he cares about the safety and well-being of our learners by responding positively to our call for a nationwide Safe Schools call centre.

School infrastructure budget cut: a crime against children

The following is an open letter written by the DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP, to the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga.
Dear Me Motshekga
Last week, Lumka Mkhetwa went to use the toilet while at school. With no teacher supervising her class at the time, she went alone. When she didn’t return to class, her absence wasn’t noticed. It had not been noticed for hours.
In fact, it was only when the driver commissioned to transport learners home arrived at the end of the school day, and couldn’t find her, that a search got underway. It was discovered that she had drowned in one of the school’s pit toilets.
It is horrific that in 2018, a toilet at a school attended by young children is so dangerous that it can kill a learner.
The Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI), which was supposed to address the very conditions that led to her death, has stopped due to maladministration and delays. Out of 259 schools that were supposed to be provided with sanitation in the 2016/17 year, only nine have.
In the Eastern Cape, where Lumka died, R415 million was taken away from the provincial ASIDI allocation because the projects were not implemented. Your Department has many excuses for the shocking performance, blaming everything from shady contractors and mismanagement by Implementing Agents like the Independent Development Trust (IDT), to bad weather and paperwork delays.
It took the tragic death of a five-year-old for President Cyril Ramaphosa to demand an action plan from you. There is currently no action plan to back the President’s promises on ASIDI and school infrastructure.
Mere days after his State of the Nation Address, in which he promised that all ASIDI projects would be complete by March 2019, the budget cut was announced and your Department was quick to roll back expectations, claiming that the promise was essentially a speech editing error.
Bear in mind this is the same president who stood by while R3.6 billion was taken from crucial school infrastructure in the new national budget for 2018/19. That money could have built 90 new schools.
The government has sacrificed fixing collapsing schools to fund the former President Zuma’s blatantly political promise to pay university fees. Lumka Mkhetwa will, however, never go to university.
School children are desperate for the basic education that they are constitutionally promised. They walk many kilometers each day just to have a shot at passing matric. Despite this, the likelihood of receiving post-school education for many pupils is completely undermined by the fact that they attend schools where the condition of the buildings and services poses a threat to their health and safety.
Because of this, their voices seem to have no chance at influencing the political agenda. That is why I am part of a campaign to push our new president to think a little more about the children in our schools and a little less about the ANC’s party politics.
I hope you feel the same way and will sign our letter to the President, at protectourchildren.co.za  – everyone needs to work together to keep our children safe at school. The inaction from government is criminal and must come to an end.

Too many learners forced to suffer the effects of the lack of scholar transport

Please see pictures here, here and here
Today, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP, and DA Leader in the Free State Provincial Legislature, Roy Jankielsohn MPL, walked with learners from Bohlokong Township in Bethlehem to Arran Primary School to raise awareness about the lack of scholar transport in the area.
Despite repeated appeals, the principal of Arran Primary school was told by the Free State provincial government that it cannot provide transport for learners who live in townships and attend farm schools. In the last three financial years, 823 schools have been closed in the province which means that many children now have to travel further to get to school, yet no provision has been made for transport for these learners.
This refusal by the ANC government to provide transport for learners has a devastating effect not only on the education of our children but also on their safety. After walking to school with some of these learners today, it is clear that this must change.
Recently, a learner was raped on her way to school. This could have been avoided had there been transport to get her safely to school.
Learners as young as six also have to cross the busy Reitz road and walk along the provincial R26 road daily, facing oncoming traffic. It is unacceptable that they have to risk their lives just to get an education.
Learners are also unable to concentrate in class as a result of the long walk to school, which is more than 6 kilometres for some. Added to this, some learners only receive one meal per day and we visited two this morning who had not had breakfast before leaving for school.
The lack of scholar transport has lasting effects on the future of our learners. The DA will continue to fight this battle until the burden of travelling long distances to school is lifted off our children’s shoulders.
 

DBE fails to connect a single school to electricity

Please find attached soundbites in English, Sesotho and isiXhosa by the DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP.
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has failed, yet again, to meet its own school infrastructure targets under the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) leaving children to learn without access to water, electricity or proper sanitation.
Specifically, the DBE has:

  • Failed to connect any of the identified 620 (0%) schools to electricity;
  • Connected only 9 (3%) out of the planned 265 schools to sanitation;
  • Provided water to a dismal 10 (4%) out of 280 schools; and
  • Only built 16 (27%) schools out of their target of 59.

The DA will submit questions to Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, on why this gross mismanagement of the ASIDI programme has been allowed to go on for so long. The Minister must answer fully for why she allows children to continue to be subjected to shocking learning conditions.
The DA has been and will continue to visit schools across the country exposing the collapsing infrastructure and the Financial and Fiscal Commission has shown the Basic Education Portfolio Committee just how terrible the situation is.
Our children cannot be expected to excel and build bright futures when they have been deprived of their right to a safe and conducive learning environment.

Basic Education Department failed our children by missing construction targets

The Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) annual report reveals irregular expenditure amounting to R1.4 billion and underspending of R874 million on a critical programme which is responsible for school and infrastructure construction. The underspending on payments for capital assets in the school infrastructure budget is R558 million.
Given these massive problems in the construction of schools and school infrastructure, DA Deputy Shadow Minister of Basic Education, Nomsa Marchesi MP, will now conduct oversight visits to failed and delayed school projects in the fourth Parliamentary term.
Next week, the Parliamentary Committee on Basic Education will also receive a briefing by the Financial and Fiscal Commission on spending patterns on infrastructure and the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative and will thoroughly interrogate the issue following this.
School infrastructure should be a major priority for the DBE, but this is clearly not the case as it failed to achieve their targets for all four school infrastructure performance indicators.
Schools cannot be fixed – or even built – if the issue of irregular spending is also not resolved. Among the main reasons many schools have not been completed is the fact that contractors were changed without proper procedures being followed. The Auditor-General drew special attention to the high amount of irregular expenditure. This year alone, R621 million was mismanaged in this way.
This points to a complete failure by the DBE to manage this crucial programme properly. The department and the minister, Angie Motshekga, cannot continue blaming provinces and bad contractors for the delay in delivering safe schools.  It is time for them to take responsibility for the fact that thousands of children continue to learn in substandard buildings.
At an estimate of R40 million per school, 14 state of the art schools could have been built for close to 10 000 learners, but the money is simply not being spent.
Basic education is vital for improving the circumstances of South African children and building their futures, but they cannot achieve and thrive if their learning environment is falling apart. The DA will ensure Motshekga and the DBE are held accountable for once again failing our children.