The lack of adequate infrastructure remains a serious constraint to the learning environment in South Africa, but thanks to the Department of Basic Education (DBE), this issue is finally beginning to receive priority and high-level attention.
It is through the Strategic Integrated Projects (SIPs), in particular SIP 13, that new school construction projects, school rehabilitation and school upgrades have been placed under the centralised management of the DBE, which will implement the national school build programme under the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Committee (PICC).
SIP 13 forms part of a much larger national infrastructure roll-out plan which seeks to achieve a number of objectives:
• To use infrastructure spend to drive inclusive economic growth and social development;
• To drive job creation and skills development;
• To address the legacy of apartheid spatial planning by integrating those parts of the country — rural areas in particular — which have been historically excluded from economic development;
• To use infrastructure development to lead the struggle against the triple evils of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
The national school build programme must adhere to a number of principles common to all SIPs. These include strategic procurement and investment that fall within a coherent planning framework, specifically the New Growth Path, which simultaneously considers the community, economy, skills development and basic needs in the pursuit of economic growth and development.
The national school build programme constitutes a significant opportunity for the transformation of the education sector. The sector needs to focus on rebuilding technical capacity, both to unlock infrastructure spend and to manage relations with contractors and service providers — from design right through to implementation and sign off. This includes the provision of quality infrastructure and value for money for government and for society.
One of the greatest challenges that the DBE may face, however, is to develop an audit of all existing infrastructure plans which will ensure the correct implementation of these projects and impact on how speedily these are delivered to the public.
At the dawn of the new dispensation, South Africa inherited a large number of schools in all provinces without water, sanitation and electricity, the bulk of the challenge being in the Eastern Cape. As a result, DBE launched the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (Asidi) to get rid of all inappropriate school structures and provide basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation.
The programme aims to implement basic safety norms and standards in school infrastructure in the democratic and modern era of South Africa and is funded from the Schools Infrastructure Backlog Grant (SIBG).
Aisdi targets the provision of water, sanitation and electricity for schools lacking any of these services and the eradication of inappropriate structures that include entire mud schools.
The delivery of this infrastructure is being guided by the Infrastructure Delivery Management System (IDMS) toolkit. A key feature of the IDMS is the gateway system, which has been designed to improve efficiencies in the management of infrastructure delivery. The system provides several control points in the infrastructure delivery life cycle, where a decision is required before proceeding to the next stage.
The gateway system ensures that a project involving the design, construction, refurbishment, alteration, rehabilitation or maintenance of school buildings remains within agreed mandates, that it is aligned with the purpose for which it was intended and that it can progress successfully from one stage to the next.
The challenges that the education sector is faced with arise from the fact that SIP 13 falls under different areas of control and administrative responsibility. DBE, in implementing the SIP 13 programme, engages with numerous other line-function departments. These include the Department of Water Affairs for the provision of water in education facilities; the Department of Human Settlements for the provision of sanitation and forward-planning information pertaining to the introduction of new human settlements that require new schools; the department of energy for energy requirements, especially where the grid is not readily accessible; as well as the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs for integrating all services and planning for schools at municipal level. The DBE is also working with power utility Eskom for the provision of electricity in schools.
Higher education challenges
Infrastructure development for higher education also remains high on the agenda for the government. This is undertaken through SIP 14, which is central to the continued development of South Africa’s higher education sector and focuses on the building of lecture rooms, student accommodation, libraries and laboratories, as well as the provision of ICT connectivity.
It was part of the government’s infrastructure strategy to not just include higher education institutions within its infrastructure programme but also to encourage them to drive growth in their cities in terms of research, innovation, development, engineering and social engineering. An example of this is the City of Tshwane, which is one of the biggest student towns in the country. It is rolling out its ICT programme and providing free Wi-Fi services. This is part of the city’s “Smart City” initiative, which is an integral part of its Tshwane Vision 2055 strategy.
Phase one has already begun with fully managed Free Internet Zones being available to the Tshwane University of Technology, the University of Pretoria, Tshwane North College, Mamelodi Community Centre and Church Square in the CBD. Further evidence of the “Smart City” rollout is several construction projects that will expand infrastructure at the University of Pretoria’s faculties of health and veterinary sciences.
The addition of two new institutions within the local higher education landscape, namely the University of Mpumalanga and the Sol Plaatje University in the Northern Cape, are expected to provide additional capacity to South Africa’s higher education system, as well as focus on establishing niche academic departments that are under-represented in the country.
The University of Mpumalanga is expected to specialise in agriculture and biodiversity while the University of Sol Plaatje will specialise in heritage studies, including interconnected academic fields such as museum management, archaeology, indigenous languages, and restoration architecture.
The university buildings will include administration offices, class/lecture rooms, halls, student residences, laboratories, study spaces, social and recreation spaces, sports areas, auditoria.
Another university that has embarked on major infrastructure upgrades is the North-West University (NWU). The project involves the construction of new buildings and the upgrade of existing buildings and equipment at NWU’s Mafikeng, Potchefstroom and Vaal Triangle campuses.
The biggest project is at the Mafikeng campus and entails the construction and furnishing of two new student residences, each with 250 beds, a new building for the nursing faculty and the second phase of the natural sciences building at the campus. The second-biggest project entails the construction and furnishing of a new building for the pharmacy faculty at the Potchefstroom campus. The upgrades are expected to take three years to complete.
The first Mafikeng residence was targeted to be complete by the end of 2013 and the other by the end of 2015. Construction at the Potchefstroom campus was completed in 2013.
The current initiatives taken by the DBE, under the auspices of the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Committee, to address the infrastructural backlogs in the education sector, are pivotal in improving the learning environment in the classrooms and providing adequate facilities to previously disadvantaged schools.
Mathapelo Malao is a Senior Manager in KPMG’s Infrastructure and Major Projects department
This article forms part of a larger supplement, which you can find here. This supplement has been paid for and its contents supplied and signed off by KPMG and its partners