Basic Education Deputy Minister, Dr Reginah Mhaule and Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Ms Judith Nemadzinga-Tshabalala, jointly conducted school monitoring and oversight visits to factory sites of the Supported Employment Enterprises (SEE) in south and central Johannesburg on 23 February 2026. The Deputy Ministers, accompanied by National, Provincial and District senior officials, inspected the Elethu-Themba Combined Public School, a Quintile 2 school accommodating Grade R to 12 learners including a class of learners with special needs (LSEN). The school is situated on a plot in Eikenhof under the Johannesburg South Education District.

The Deputy Ministers noted that the school was previously military accommodation (barracks), with 17 classrooms built with asbestos, and expressed concern about its structurally poor, dilapidated state which may be a health hazard to learners, teachers and staff. DBE officials from the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign (QLTC) and School Infrastructure committed to immediately attend to the structural challenges of the school with assistance from partnerships within the sector.

The Deputy Ministers proceeded to visit two SEE factory sites, which operate under the Department of Employment and Labour to provide employment opportunities for persons living with disabilities. The SEE comprises 10 factory sites across all provinces, employing a total of 982 people as of December 2025. The first stop was the Rand Factory, which specializes in the production of hospital linen. The factory employs 100 people with disabilities, 55 women and 45 men, including 6 support staff, with a capacity to employ 300 people. The second factory site, Springfield, is the premium furniture manufacturer of home, office and school furniture. The factory has the latest state-of-the-art machinery that allows increased production output, with 71 factory workers, 9 staff members and capacity to employ an additional 30 people with disabilities.

The CEO of SEE, Mr Donald Nkadimeng, told the Deputy Ministers that the programme has the capacity to manufacture 2,000 school desks per day across all its factories, and the capacity to store and transport 15,000 desks across the country to help alleviate school furniture challenges in schools. “We can manufacture and supply enough furniture to provide 30,000 learners with desks per annum” he added. The Deputy Ministers concluded the oversight visits with a tour of the factories to experience first-hand, practical work performed by employees, some of whom are former DBE learners with special needs who underwent training on vocational skills.