Concerns raised over disused Cape school buildings posing a crime risk
By Sisonke Mlamla
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Cape Town - The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) and the Department of Transport and Public Works (DTPW) have been blamed for leaving disused school buildings to be stripped and vandalised, posing a risk to nearby communities.
A recent example was the property on which Uitsig High School was located, which was handed back to the DTPW after the school s closure in 2019.
Education MEC Debbie Schäfer s spokesperson, Kerry Mauchline, said Beauvallon High School in Valhalla Park is still open. However, they are aware of an “old Central Primary School” building in Diep River, which she said would have been handed back to the DTPW prior to 2000.
Picture: iStock
Covid-19 could have caused South Africa’s biggest school drop-out rate yet. The Department of Basic Education projects record high drop-out rates based on the number of matric pupils who were not accounted for by the final exam last year. This was revealed in a presentation shown to parliament last week on the department’s readiness to reopen schools next month. Over 20,000 matric learners from Gauteng, Western Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal were unaccounted for by the end of 2020, and were flagged as possible dropouts by the department. The Western Cape led the pack with 5147 matric learners unaccounted for. In.