Pretoria – President Jacob Zuma says government remained concerns over a Statistic South Africa report that more 200 000 children across the country were not attending school.
“There should be no corner of our country in which children are still denied an education while we celebrate freedom,” Zuma said the Freedom Day celebrations in Pretoria on Wednesday. More than 5000 people, both young and old attended the event held at Union Buildings.
This was despite the fact that government had established no-fee schools in all provinces across the country and that more than 40 000 children received subsidy to enable their access to pre-school education. Furthermore at higher education level, student loans were being converted to bursaries for qualifying final year students.
Meanwhile, Zuma told the crowd that as part of undoing the legacy of apartheid’s Group Areas Act, government will in the next five years be upgrading informal settlements in municipalities to provide security of tenure and access to basic services.
“We are also committing government to construct 80 000 mixed income rental housing units in order to enable low income earners to live closer to where they work”.
In this way, the country shall dismantle the apartheid landscape, which dictated where people should live and work on the basis of the colour of their skin. – BuaNews
