Pretoria - To mark the opening of the 2014 school year, President Jacob Zuma will later this week open two schools near Mthatha in the Eastern Cape.
Zuma will open the Ngidini Primary School in Libode and the Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology in Mvezo on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
Ngidini Primary, which was a mud school before, was built as part of the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Development Initiative (ASIDI), an extension of the broader Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC) led by Zuma.
The Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology has been built by ICT company, Siemens.
The school is hoped to create the right spirit and enthusiasm around future technologies and will focus on engineering, science, technology and agriculture.
ASIDI
About 50 schools are to be built through the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI). The schools will accommodate more than 10 000 learners in the Eastern Cape.
ASIDI aims to replace inappropriate school structures, address basic services backlogs and the provision of these services. It forms part of government’s 13th Strategic Infrastructure Project (SIP), which relates to the rebuilding of schools.
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.
The R8.2 billion public-private programme aims to eradicate the 496 mud schools in the country, provide water and sanitation to 1 257 schools and electricity to 878 schools by March 2016.
As part of the national ASIDI rollout, mud schools in the Eastern Cape will also be replaced with more appropriate structures, and upgrade schools to optimum functionality through the provision of core spaces such as libraries, laboratories and administration blocks. - SAnews.gov.za
