FS academic year starts off on the wrong foot
16 January 2019
The DA will submit questions to the Free State Education MEC, Tate Makgoe, this is after the DA randomly sampled 20 schools within the province – out of 10 primary schools, and 10 secondary schools sampled. 4 out of 10 schools have received textbooks and 4 out of 10 are yet to receive their subsidies. 8 out of 10 schools remain overcrowded.
Similarly, within secondary schools - 7 out of 10 had not received textbooks, 8 out of 10 had not received subsidies, whilst a further 8 out of 10 remain overcrowded. This shows that the Free State Department of Education has failed to adequately plan and restore the state of our basic education.
The Department experiences financial constraints, service-providers are unwilling to take orders without advance payment.
The DA maintains that the financially stressed department cannot fulfill its obligations towards schools in the province. In Koffiefontein, schools do not know which learners will be forced to rewrite the 2018 end-of-year examinations and the department continues to compromise the education process.