{"id":246945,"date":"2023-01-10T13:32:16","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T11:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/infrastructure-maintenance-is-key-ahead-of-school-year\/"},"modified":"2023-01-10T13:32:16","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T11:32:16","slug":"infrastructure-maintenance-is-key-ahead-of-school-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/infrastructure-maintenance-is-key-ahead-of-school-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Infrastructure maintenance is key ahead of school year"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Gauteng Education MEC, Matome Chiloane, says the department has placed an emphasis on readying school infrastructure ahead of the new school year which kicks off tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The MEC said as part of the back to school campaign, the department together with Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, will officially open the school year at the newly built Mapenane Secondary School in Garankuwa.<\/p>\n

Members of Gauteng\u2019s executive council will also conduct oversight visits to schools to ensure that learners and teachers are in class, on time and with the correct learning and teaching resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have done during the last academic year as well as during the holiday, is to maintain or fix a number of schools\u2026the numbers are at 488 schools and that is continuing in terms of maintenance of schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause there\u2019s an interlink in terms of building schools\u2026we have a self-built programme and in that programme we are looking to build 878 classrooms to assist us to deal with placement so we have given that to 297 schools,\u201d he said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Vandalism<\/strong><\/p>\n

The MEC said an issue of concern for the department is continued vandalism at schools.<\/p>\n

He revealed that some 120 schools have been affected by vandalism since the beginning of the 2022 academic year with 24 schools vandalised during the December holiday period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is becoming a bottomless bucket. When we fix a school, set up infrastructure, set in resources for learners and educators to perform their duties, then you have criminals who come and disrupt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn most cases, these criminals stay in our communities. We continue to appeal to communities to work with us to deal with the scourge of vandalism. It\u2019s really reversing the good work that we are doing as a department, community and as a country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Water and sanitation<\/strong><\/p>\n

In terms of water and sanitation interventions, Chiloane said the department has noted that there are areas where there are water supply problems and is dealing with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are providing water tankers to provide water in those areas. And here we are also appealing to communities to help us\u2026to allow those that have been given an opportunity to go and deliver this water to our children to allow them to do so uninterrupted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Some 20 emergency sanitation units have also been provided to alleviate shortages in schools.<\/p>\n

Learning and teaching<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chiloane appealed to non-governmental organisations and civil society groups who will be embarking on back to school campaigns on Wednesday to not disrupt learning and teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have agreed with the schools to come in the morning to motivate and support our learners and educators, we don\u2019t have a problem as long as you have been authorised to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation is big and requires all of us to have our hands on deck and we don\u2019t mind that as long as you don\u2019t disrupt learning and teaching,\u201d he said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gauteng Education MEC, Matome Chiloane, says the department has placed an emphasis on readying school infrastructure ahead of the new school year which kicks off tomorrow. The MEC said as part of the back to school campaign, the department together with Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, will officially open the school year at the newly built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-246945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/infrastructure-maintenance-is-key-ahead-of-school-year.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}