THE Eastern Cape education department has hired Statistics SA to count its pupils, teachers and schools for once and all.
Education MEC Mandla Makupula announced at a portfolio committee meeting in the Bhisho legislature on Tuesday that StatsSA would be paid R28-million for the job .
An award-winning Daily Dispatch investigation revealed that taxpayers were funding pupils at non-existent boarding schools in several education districts across the province.
There have also been reports about the department funding thousands of “ghost pupils” at “ghost schools”, as well as schools where pupil numbers had been inflated .
It will also help clear “ghost teachers” from the department’s system.
Makupula told stunned MPLs that the verification exercise in more than 5600 provincial schools would help curb the rampant inflation of pupil numbers, which influences state funding.
Makupula told committee members that StatsSA had indicated it would finish the job in two months and would report back with “credible data” on his desk by June.
“The challenge we have in the department is to have credible data.
“Once information is not credible, your planning will always be found wanting.
“It’s quite expensive, but we think let’s bite the bullet in order to get quality information that will give us a lasting solution to our challenges,” Makupula said while delivering a political overview report .
To allay the committee’s concerns, Makupula said a province such as Limpopo, which had far fewer schools than the Eastern Cape, had undergone the same exercise and were invoiced R25-million by StatsSA.
Although committee members agreed to shelve discussions around Makupula and HOD Mthunywa Ngonzo’s departmental overview reports for their meeting on May 7, committee chair and ANC MPL Mzoleli Mrara yesterday told the Daily Dispatch that the committee viewed the expenditure as wasteful.
“We regard this revelation as a wasteful expenditure because there is a directorate in the department responsible for such audits.
“They should get that information from their institute in Stirling, East London, where that unit is based.
“If they cannot provide such information, then we do not know what their function is.
“Just recently, we were stuck without money to hire teachers, but now this,” said Mrara.
“However, we are in dire need of a credible database in the department because all the wrongs there are on the basis of assumptions and not credible information.
“So if StatsSA will correct that, then we will have to support the move.”
He lambasted state agencies such as StatsSA and the Special Investigative Unit for charging “exorbitant amounts” from other state entities, saying it was wrong that they competed with private consultants.
However, DA MPL Edmund van Vurren said the department should be given the benefit of the doubt as an independent verification would be to their benefit.
“However, if there is no credible data by June as promised, we will have no option but to go for the jugular,” Van Vuuren said yesterday.
In his political overview report, Makupula told committee members of departmental plans to release and replace teachers on prolonged sick leave and of rationalisation and realignment of schools.
The report gives an update on the filling of vacant posts in the department.
Makapula also committed his department to delivering learner support material and to completing the school syllabus by the end of August. — asandan@dispatch.co.za
Activists appalled by T’kei school
By ABONGILE MGAQELWA
A GROUP of leading South Africans on a “solidarity visit” to Transkei schools to raise awareness about their infrastructure crisis received more than they bargained when they arrived at Putuma Junior Secondary School in Mqanduli.
Aside from a lack of furniture, the school has a massive problem of overcrowding with all but one classroom accommodating more than 100 pupils.
The Grade1 classroom accommodates 177 pupils. In Grade2 there are 140 pupils, Grade3 has 143, Grade4 a total of 66, Grade5 has 110, Grade6 has 135, Grade7 has 103, Grade8 has 102 and Grade9 has 99 pupils.
The school was visited yesterday by the group of prominent academics, activists and authors led by Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba.
The delegation included novelist and playwright Zakes Mda, constitutional law scholar Professor Pierre de Vos, academic Professor Njabulo Ndebele and human rights activist Elinor Sisulu.
They saw the deplorable conditions under which many Eastern Cape children try to learn.
At Putuma, proper desks are non- existent and pupils make makeshift desks from old chairs supported by bricks or concrete blocks.
Some pupils sit on bricks in a “first come, first served competition” daily, said Grade3 teacher Nomzekelo Ndibongo.
There weren’t many pupils in the classrooms when the team arrived at the school yesterday due to the weekend’s downpour.
Speaking to the Daily Dispatch after inspecting the school, Makgoba said: “The conditions are appalling and dangerous. Just physically, some of the desks that I saw on bricks should not be allowed. The state of cleanliness in the classrooms leaves much to be desired.
“What really makes me cry inside and feel sad and broken is the overcrowding of those little ones.
“All of them were keen to learn – all of them were learning – but the conditions under which they were learning really are worse than a pigsty. We cannot, in clear conscience as South Africans, allow for such classrooms to be there.”
Makgoba made a plea for any good Samaritan to assist with desks and temporary structures for the school.
Human Rights Commissioner Lindiwe Mokate was also taken aback .
“We came here knowing that there was a lot of deprivation and that things were not all right in the schools. But what we saw, we did not bargain for. This situation that we came across is something that we would not have expected.”
The team visits more schools around Mthatha today.
One of the schools to be visited is Ntaphane Junior Secondary School in Corhana. The school is embroiled in a bitter fight with the education department regarding the supply of textbooks. —
R28m to count E Cape’s pupils
Education MEC Mandla Makupula announced at a portfolio committee meeting in the Bhisho legislature on Tuesday that StatsSA would be paid R28-million for the job .
An award-winning Daily Dispatch investigation revealed that taxpayers were funding pupils at non-existent boarding schools in several education districts across the province.
There have also been reports about the department funding thousands of “ghost pupils” at “ghost schools”, as well as schools where pupil numbers had been inflated .
It will also help clear “ghost teachers” from the department’s system.
Makupula told stunned MPLs that the verification exercise in more than 5600 provincial schools would help curb the rampant inflation of pupil numbers, which influences state funding.
Makupula told committee members that StatsSA had indicated it would finish the job in two months and would report back with “credible data” on his desk by June.
“The challenge we have in the department is to have credible data.
“Once information is not credible, your planning will always be found wanting.
“It’s quite expensive, but we think let’s bite the bullet in order to get quality information that will give us a lasting solution to our challenges,” Makupula said while delivering a political overview report .
To allay the committee’s concerns, Makupula said a province such as Limpopo, which had far fewer schools than the Eastern Cape, had undergone the same exercise and were invoiced R25-million by StatsSA.
Although committee members agreed to shelve discussions around Makupula and HOD Mthunywa Ngonzo’s departmental overview reports for their meeting on May 7, committee chair and ANC MPL Mzoleli Mrara yesterday told the Daily Dispatch that the committee viewed the expenditure as wasteful.
“We regard this revelation as a wasteful expenditure because there is a directorate in the department responsible for such audits.
“They should get that information from their institute in Stirling, East London, where that unit is based.
“If they cannot provide such information, then we do not know what their function is.
“Just recently, we were stuck without money to hire teachers, but now this,” said Mrara.
“However, we are in dire need of a credible database in the department because all the wrongs there are on the basis of assumptions and not credible information.
“So if StatsSA will correct that, then we will have to support the move.”
He lambasted state agencies such as StatsSA and the Special Investigative Unit for charging “exorbitant amounts” from other state entities, saying it was wrong that they competed with private consultants.
However, DA MPL Edmund van Vurren said the department should be given the benefit of the doubt as an independent verification would be to their benefit.
“However, if there is no credible data by June as promised, we will have no option but to go for the jugular,” Van Vuuren said yesterday.
In his political overview report, Makupula told committee members of departmental plans to release and replace teachers on prolonged sick leave and of rationalisation and realignment of schools.
The report gives an update on the filling of vacant posts in the department.
Makapula also committed his department to delivering learner support material and to completing the school syllabus by the end of August. — asandan@dispatch.co.za
Activists appalled by T’kei school
By ABONGILE MGAQELWA
A GROUP of leading South Africans on a “solidarity visit” to Transkei schools to raise awareness about their infrastructure crisis received more than they bargained when they arrived at Putuma Junior Secondary School in Mqanduli.
Aside from a lack of furniture, the school has a massive problem of overcrowding with all but one classroom accommodating more than 100 pupils.
The Grade1 classroom accommodates 177 pupils. In Grade2 there are 140 pupils, Grade3 has 143, Grade4 a total of 66, Grade5 has 110, Grade6 has 135, Grade7 has 103, Grade8 has 102 and Grade9 has 99 pupils.
The school was visited yesterday by the group of prominent academics, activists and authors led by Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba.
The delegation included novelist and playwright Zakes Mda, constitutional law scholar Professor Pierre de Vos, academic Professor Njabulo Ndebele and human rights activist Elinor Sisulu.
They saw the deplorable conditions under which many Eastern Cape children try to learn.
At Putuma, proper desks are non- existent and pupils make makeshift desks from old chairs supported by bricks or concrete blocks.
Some pupils sit on bricks in a “first come, first served competition” daily, said Grade3 teacher Nomzekelo Ndibongo.
There weren’t many pupils in the classrooms when the team arrived at the school yesterday due to the weekend’s downpour.
Speaking to the Daily Dispatch after inspecting the school, Makgoba said: “The conditions are appalling and dangerous. Just physically, some of the desks that I saw on bricks should not be allowed. The state of cleanliness in the classrooms leaves much to be desired.
“What really makes me cry inside and feel sad and broken is the overcrowding of those little ones.
“All of them were keen to learn – all of them were learning – but the conditions under which they were learning really are worse than a pigsty. We cannot, in clear conscience as South Africans, allow for such classrooms to be there.”
Makgoba made a plea for any good Samaritan to assist with desks and temporary structures for the school.
Human Rights Commissioner Lindiwe Mokate was also taken aback .
“We came here knowing that there was a lot of deprivation and that things were not all right in the schools. But what we saw, we did not bargain for. This situation that we came across is something that we would not have expected.”
The team visits more schools around Mthatha today.
One of the schools to be visited is Ntaphane Junior Secondary School in Corhana. The school is embroiled in a bitter fight with the education department regarding the supply of textbooks. —
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