NW Education turns a blind eye to water crisis at Laerskool Mareetsane

Issued by Gavin Edwards MPL – DA Chief Whip: North West Provincial Legislature
09 Mar 2023 in Press Statements

Note to Broadcasters: Find linked soundbite in English by Gavin Edwards MPL

The DA is calling on North West Education MEC, Viola Motsumi, to urgently intervene in the escalating water crisis at Laerskool Mareetsane just outside Mahikeng.

The school and its boarding facilities, has been without running water since the beginning of the school year on 9 January 2023, posing a hygiene risk to learners and staff.

The school management has been in contact with the School District’s circuit managers, without any success.

The lack of water supply has forced the school to utilise its budget to purchase a hundred thousand litres of water at a cost of R15,000.00 every week to ensure that learners and staff have drinking water and allow hostel learners to bathe daily and have their meals prepared.

However, since water supply to schools should be a given, the school did not budget for a two month-long water crisis. This means school funds meant for the daily operation of the school is at risk of being depleted before the end of the school year.

We have today written to MEC Motsumi requesting her to provide us with the Department of Education’s immediate plan to mitigate the current water crisis facing the school, as well as a long-term solution.

We know that this is one of the many schools that are currently experiencing water and sanitation challenges in the province.

We will also submit questions to MEC Motsumi requesting the names of all the schools in the province that are experiencing water challenges as well as the department’s plan to mitigate this.

At the beginning of the year, the Department of Education took MPLs and officials of the Legislature on oversight programmes to assess school readiness. The DA did not participate in this window-dressing exercise and instead conducted our own independent oversight to schools throughout the province. It is evident that the legislature’s oversight arranged by the department was ineffective if schools like

Mareetsane Laerskool were excluded. This supports the DA’s call that the Legislature should develop its own school oversight mechanism at the beginning of the school year to ensure that the Department of Education is held to account.

Effective learning cannot take place if we cannot address critical issues such as water, sanitation, and infrastructure. We hope the MEC will heed this call as a matter of urgency.