Education Department dismisses misleading report about ASIDI school delivery

24 Aug 2014

The Department of Basic Education has dismissed a report that claims it would take nine years to eradicate mud schools. The report entitled "Mud to Bricks: A review of school. Infrastructure spending and delivery" dated January 2014, but released last week, is inaccurate, misleading and unhelpful. Some of the content is outdated and has, in fact, been overtaken by events. Most of the challenges they raise have since been addressed (see here).

The authors, Carmen Abdoll and Conrad Barberton on behalf of the Centre for Child Law - University of Pretoria, did not contact the department to obtain the very latest information on progress made to address school infrastructure. The report relied on disparate sources of data and opinion to produce an adverse finding. An engagement with the DBE and provinces could have contributed to a more balanced set of findings and recommendations.

Firstly, it is disingenuous for them to claim that the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) was born as a result of court action. The fact is that the DBE, upon a request from Minister Angie Motshekga for a priority list for her first term of office, started working on the ASIDI concept in 2009 and sent its first concept note for the initiative to National Treasury as early as 2010.

Secondly, the capacity to manage the ASIDI programme has since been beefed up with the appointment of a Programme Manager in October 2011. Since then 70 mud schools have been replaced in the Eastern Cape and 4 in the Western Cape out of the target of the target of 510 schools, including those built entirely from inappropriate material.

In the Eastern Cape alone, a further 100 schools are planned for completion in the course of the next financial year. Nationally, the department will have completed the building of over 200 schools. To claim the programme will take another nine years when clear progress is being published on an ongoing basis is not only mischievous but unnecessarily pessimistic.

Thirdly, expenditure patterns have improved significantly as a result of improved planning and capacity on the programme. It has gone from R76 million in 2011/12 to R859 million in 2012/13 and to R1,358 billion in 2013/14. The steady increase in expenditure is an indication of an improving performance.

The programme is not without its challenges and these range from community related issues, work stoppages, poor contractor performance, inclement weather and even gang war fare in some sections of the country. ASIDI is also providing basic services to schools that previously had none.

More than 200 schools nationally, have been given access to water, decent sanitation and electricity for the first time ever. ASIDI is run by teams of competent professionals both in the programme support unit and the various implementing agents appointed to carry out this programme. The department is determined to play its role in helping to restore dignity to South Africans.

Capacity beefed up

Fourthly, the DBE has strengthened its monitoring and oversight role, as well as early warning mechanisms. With regard to the Education Infrastructure Grant and the provincial infrastructure programme, the department together with National Treasury has institutionalised the Infrastructure Delivery Management System (IDMS) in all nine provincial Departments of Education.

An initial amount of R10 million, which was subsequently increased to R26 million in the current financial year to cater for district personnel, is allocated from the Education Infrastructure Grant to each province. A total of 133 posts have been filled, consisting of 18 quantity surveyors, 20 architects, 3 electrical engineers, 3 civil engineers, 2 GIS specialists, 5 town and regional planners, 4 education infrastructure planners, 39 works inspectors and 39 infrastructure finance specialists. This initiative, together with the deployment of Technical Assistants in DBE and in provinces, has already addressed the capacity challenges as alluded to in the report.

The DBE has also concluded the update of the National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS) to provide up to date information on infrastructure in schools. The provincial Education Departments are also conducting condition assessments of their schools to keep the system updated from completed projects done through the provincial infrastructure programme.

The number of mud schools targeted for eradication has always been publicly available and the department is reporting on targets achieved, including individual school by school updates on an ongoing basis.

Finally, the DBE is under no illusion regarding the daunting conditions in some of our schools together with the backlogs of essential educational spaces and services. We have made no secret of it at all and are only too happy to account to the public. The Department of Basic Education will continue to replace mud schools and build new state of the art schools and hand them over to the communities. The department will not be distracted by the work of non-government organisations whose task is to misinform the public about the work of government for their own selfish interest.

It is clear that the organisation does not understand how government works and it misses the opportunity of educating the public and instead chooses a mischievous route of twisting the facts for ulterior motives.

Statement issued by Elijah Mhlanga, Department of Basic Education, August 24 2014

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