Education

(1)   Current demand and future projected growth are considered, as is the available budget.

Planning for the optimal allocation of resources in an expanding system is incredibly challenging, and even more so within the context of a constrained fiscal environment.

The number of learners that will apply to enrol in public schools in the Western Cape is expected to continue to increase over the next decade to 2030.

Migration overtook natural population growth as the main driver of demographic change in the Western Cape in 2018 and is predominantly driven by an image of the province as a place of relative economic opportunity.

The overall population in the Western Cape is expected to grow by nearly 20% to 2030 to 8.1 million, and the 1.3 million learners in the public ordinary school system in 2019 is projected to increase by 22% over the same period, with a shift to secondary schools where school places are more complex and costly to provide. Most of this increase is expected to be in the first 5 years, i.e. in the period 2020 – 2024. The Western Cape Government faces an enormous challenge to be able to meet demand in the coming years, as the cost pressures in education far outpace anticipated increases to the total budget.

(2)     (a)   

The planning of school infrastructure is contained in the WCED's infrastructure plans, also called the User Asset Management Plans (U-AMPs). The U-AMP is a DoRA-prescribed document with clear prescripts and conditions on how the Education Infrastructure Grant (EIG) should be used. The U-AMP contains all the infrastructure programmes and projects planned over a 10-year timeframe, with a three-year MTEF projected budget attached to it. Although projects are budgeted for over three years, the budget can change year-on-year depending on resource availability and emerging local service delivery priorities at a given time.

Planning seeks to ensure that:

• All children who need it have access to a place at school. 
• School buildings provide a safe and healthy environment.
• Learning spaces are designed and set up for equitable and inclusive access.
• The designs of schools facilitate pedagogy and community engagement. 
• School infrastructure is developed to evolve sustainably over the long term.

Practically, the school development programme uses a stepwise approach and follows a roadmap that is strategy-led and results-focused:

• Short-term (1-3 years): Expand capacity of the school system to create new physical learning spaces. Deploy emergency school infrastructure that help schools in the face of rapid urbanization, overcrowding, crime, vandalism, water scarcity and climate change.
• Short to Medium-term (3-5 years): Invest in new school access types and other catalytic infrastructure projects that protect the drivers of education improvement, such as prioritising early learning / pre-school classes) and that are necessary to both address spatial inequality and uplift communities, given the historical context of under-investment.
• Medium to Long-term (5-10 years): Design and implement a Priority Futures School Building programme that proposes to build, revitalize and renew secondary schools in the province over the next decade to 2030 towards  improving the sustainability of education while also enhancing community resilience in the Western Cape.

(b)         Please see Annexure A.