Basic Education Minister, Mrs Angie Motshekga handed over Delft South Primary School in Delft, outside Cape Town in the Western Cape Province to an elated community on 04 September 2018.

Built at a cost of R75 million through the Department’s Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI), the newly built Delft South Primary School will be an institution of learning for 1,578 of the community’s young members. Consisting of 45 classrooms, a computer and science laboratory, a library as well as a nutrition centre, the new state-of-the-art facilities are providing an environment that enables optimum learning and teaching.

ASIDI will continue to work in support of the Department’s SAFE Initiative in partnership with the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) and The Nelson Mandela Foundation. Unlike ASIDI, which focuses on schools that had no sanitation whatsoever, the Sanitation Appropriate For Education (SAFE) Initiative will focus on schools where sanitation has been found to be inadequate or unsafe.

“I consider it a singular honour and a privilege to be in the province of the Western Cape to officially open yet another state-of-the-art school, namely the Delft South Primary School. Here in the Western Cape alone we have successfully replaced 25 schools that were built from inappropriate materials. We have, through building state-of-the-art school infrastructure, restored the dignity of our learners, communities and the nation at large. It is clear that our school infrastructure programme is beginning to bear fruits for our people,” said Minister Motshekga during the event.

Touching on crime and violence in schools, Minister Motshekga said: “We have also established that there is a correlation between gang membership, drug use and crime. None of these can prepare you for a bright future beyond this neighbourhood. It is only education that has the power to break the intergenerational scourge of poverty and spur an individual into a bright future – free of drugs, crime and violence. We as Government are doing everything in our power to assist communities like Delft South to be part of the Better Life narrative. As the DBE, we are no longer only bringing brick and mortar, ASIDI schools are helping to restore dignity and pride to people who had far too long been deprived of facilities that are taken for granted elsewhere”.