The Portfolio Committee on Education, Culture, Arts, Sports and Recreation chaired by Hon. Priscilla Williams conducted an oversight visit at Mmabana Tlhabane and I.D Damons Combined school in Rustenburg Local Municipality in Bojanala District.

The Portfolio Committee on Education, Culture, Arts, Sports and Recreation chaired by Hon. Priscilla Williams conducted an oversight visit at Mmabana Tlhabane and I.D Damons Combined school in Rustenburg Local Municipality in Bojanala District.

The oversight visits form part of the Legislature’s oversight week in various municipalities under the Bojanala District Municipality. The program is aimed at strengthening oversight and public participation and to promote accountability and transparency in government. Different Portfolio Committees will conduct oversight visits to various projects in the district to check their status quo and challenges therein.

Mmabana Tlhabane.
The Committee received a presentation from the Acting Regional Director at Mmabana Tlhabane, Ms. Lydia Naidoo who said the centre is offering activities like performing arts, visual arts, artistic sports and the sports and arts activities.

“We have challenges in the centre as we do not have a drama tutors and some local tutors utilise their own garages for rehearsals,” said Mrs Naidoo. The centre has not had electricity since July 2021 and uses a little generator for power. She further told the committee that due to electricity issues, they are using rechargeable mobile speakers for some of the rehearsals. The centre is in a dilapidated state as the last time the renovations were done is back in 2012.

The committee will meet with the Department of Culture, Arts, Sports and Recreation to get clarity on roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders in the centres.

I.D Damons Combined School
The committee continued with the oversight visits at I.D Damons Combined School and met the school Principal, Ms. Amanda Tlhapane. She informed the committee that when she was appointed as the principal in 2019, the school had no funds due to maladministration and underperforming learners.

“We managed to turn the school around including ideas to improve learner’s performance which yielded positive results. Even though the school is doing academically well, we still have some challenges such as overcrowding in the classrooms resulting in learners not getting full attention from the teachers.

“To mitigate the overcrowding, we have requested the Department of Education to build or provide at least 12 mobile classrooms. Those classrooms would also address the shortage of computer and science laboratories,” said Ms. Tlhapane.

She further said they suggested to the department to build a high school nearby in order to do away with the “combined school” model which in a way promotes overcrowding at their current school. “The school administration block including the storing school assets and equipment are too small. Ablution facilities are not in a good condition as they require urgent renovations as continuous repairs has proven to be extremely costly and not resolving problems.

“When it is raining, we cannot access the foundation phase area due to lack of paving as the area tends to be too muddy for both learners and teachers. We would be grateful if we can receive funding to install paving and basic renovations,” said Ms Tlhapane.

Hon. Williams said the Committee will meet with the Department of Education to request them to look into assisting the school with mobile classrooms. “The committee will also verify with the department on whether they budgeted for the school to be upgrades or renovations,” said Hon. Williams.

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