Attention editors: Please see English audio by MPP Deidré Baartman attached.
The DA in the Western Cape is pleased to note provisional additional funding of R2.549 billion for the Western Cape Education Department’s Rapid School Build Programme, which has delivered several brand-new schools in underprivileged communities in record time.
The provisional funds, when finally allocated, will provide certainty for the Department to expand access to education through their Rapid School Build programme. The Rapid Build programme is crucial to creating new and better spaces for learning, with several brand-new schools having been built in mere months.
Today’s provisionally allocated funding will allow the WCED to continue to address high demand for placement in poorer communities with a high demand for placement. By creating more places for learners, the WCED ensures that more learners are given the skills they need to find employment. Education has always been one of this government’s greatest weapons against poverty. This provisional additional funding will allow the WCED to continue its vital efforts.
The collapse of the national Budget Process last year placed serious constraints on the WCED’s push to develop new infrastructure, and much time has been wasted in recent months due to national government’s mismanagement of public funds, and failure to adequately fund provincial education departments.
The DA is overjoyed that the WCED’s efforts to build more places of learning will accelerate over the next few years. DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Education Deidré Baartman says: “We are overjoyed that this funding has been provisionally allocated, and call on all parties to back the WCED as it moves forward with the creation of new schools and classrooms for our learners. Once again, we see a competent, sub-national, DA-led government taking the initiative and moving forward with projects that make life better for our people.”