NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

QUESTION FOR WRITTEN REPLY

QUESTION 3454

DATE OF PUBLICATION OF INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 26/11/2010

(INTERNL QUESTION PAPER: 39-2010)

Mr M J Ellis (DA) to ask the Minister of Basic Education:

(1) (a) What are the minimum standards for (i) primary, (ii) secondary and (iii) high schools with regard to (aa) desks and chairs, (bb) quality of classrooms, (cc) learning material, (dd) learner to educator ratios, (ee) sporting facilities and (ff) other specified criteria, (b) who is responsible to ensure that all schools meet the minimum standards and (c) how often are schools inspected to ensure that the minimum standards are being met;

(2) (a) which schools failed to meet the specified minimum standards in the past three years, (b) in which province is each of these schools situated and (c) what aspects of the minimum standards did they fail to meet?            NW4289E

Reply

(1)(a) (i)(ii)(iii)(aa)Primary, secondary and high school desks and chairs: Minimum Standards for desks and chairs have not yet been nationally standardised and as such ,provinces are using different minimum standards with regard to desks and chairs.

(bb). Quality of classrooms: The Department of Basic Education developed the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Schools Infrastructure. The norms classify schools into primary and secondary schools and gives the minimum and maximum sizes for classrooms and core spaces and the design manual which is in the process of development will provide guidelines and specifications for classrooms and other core educational spaces.

(cc) Minimum Standards for learning material have not yet been nationally standardised.

(dd). There are no minimum standards for the learner to educator ratio however an acceptable standard is 35/1.  Presently the learner to educator ratio for public schools both secondary and primary is 32.2/1.

(ee). Sporting facilities: The Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Schools Infrastructure provides that all schools must have areas where soccer or rugby and netball or volley ball can be practiced. A basic level for the provisioning of sports fields will be a levelled, compacted earth field or a suitable field for the types of sport codes that are practiced.

(ff)Other specified criteria: The norms and standards also provides minimum and maximum spaces for ;

Core education spaces: These include classrooms, Grade R classrooms, libraries, laboratories, computer centres,etc

Administrative spaces: These include administration blocks, principals office, HOD's offices, staff room, strong rooms etc

Educational supporting spaces: These include nutrition centres, sporting facilities, halls etc

(1) (b&c) It is the competency of the Provincial Education Departments to ensure that schools meet the minimum standards and to monitor the provision of such resources.

(2) (a)(b)(c)The National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS) has been used to determine the number of schools that lack specific facilities. The tables below indicate per province the number of schools without these facilities.

Table 1: Total number lacking desks and chairs

NEIMS: 2007

Table 2: Schools without libraries and laboratories:

NEIMS 2007

Table 3: Total number of Ordinary schools without sporting facilities

NEIMS 2007

23.3% of schools in the country exceed the learner to educator ratio of 35/1 in 2010.

The schools, whose ratios are above 35/1 are distributed as follows across the nine provinces:

Source: EMIS 10^th day school survey data 2010

Issued by Parliament, December 15 2010

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