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The Department of Education will spend about R50-million this financial year to build 95 new schools in a bid to eradicate the classroom backlog.

Briefing the media this morning in Parliament, Education Minister Naledi Pandor said in 2003 there were 494 cases of schools without any classrooms, defined as "schools under trees".

However this year, the number had decreased to 152, of which 144 were in the Limpopo province.

"Although this is a declining phenomenon, it is important to note that rural to urban migration patterns put the education system under pressure," said Pandor.

Pandor said the education system was under pressure due to the sudden influx of people in an area, creating a demand for a school for children.

"This has required the use of innovative responses such as mobile classrooms, which are extensively used in some urban provinces," she said.

She said her department was now broadening the scope of the programme by targeting those schools that had unacceptable facilities.

"Our records show that there are 1 781 schools in such conditions. This equates to some 12 123 classrooms that are required to accommodate the 400 000 pupils at these schools," she said.

On youth and unemployment, Pandor said recent statistics had indicated that up to 60% of the unemployed were youth between the ages of 19 and 35.

For this reason, she said the department would work to ensure adequate funding of the technical colleges and proper alignment of the courses offered with the requirements of the economy.

"Colleges therefore need to be funded and developed in a manner that will allow them to provide both skills upgrade programmes as well as leading edge programmes that answer to the challenge of supplying the critical scarce skills needs of South Africa."

According to her, several clusters of colleges had provided their institutional plans, emphasising that the education department should now ensure implementation.

To accelerate implementation, she mentioned ongoing discussions with the business community that had already invested "heavily" in the restructuring in the further education and training (FET) sector.

Former Education Minister Kader Asmal launched the new FET institutions last year, as part of transforming this sector, merging 152 technical colleges to 50 colleges for further education and training.

Since then the sector has been gearing itself as a serious public education service provider offering courses that underpin national priorities in skills development and economic growth. - BuaNews

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