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The Department of Education was proud of its four - year record in government said the Minister of Education, Professor Sibusiso Bengu, in Cape Town yesterday.

Professor Bengu, who was speaking at the launch of the R60 million European Union School Building Programme, said the four - year period was characterised by an enabling legislation straddling curriculum issues, school funding and attendance, governance, assessment and the right of learners and educators.

"This has necessarily resulted in the challenge of implementation, an area in which we have been hamstrung by the lingering legacy of apartheid," Professor Bengu said.

"Happily, though, I must indicate that we have, through the years, vigorously addressed this weakness via specially designed programmes." A continuing obstacle in this regard is finance. Just as much as vast sums of money were used to equip our people with inferior education, huge sums are also needed to undo the damage that apartheid education inflicted upon this nation," Professor Bengu added.

The Minister said in tandem with the intangible aspect of the development and the retraining of human resources there was a need to build and rebuild physical resources and to equip and re-equip schools with educational aids and materials.

"This we have been doing, but not nearly as much as we would have loved to. Despite our ever - increasing education budget, we continue to struggle in meeting the mountain of reconstruction," Professor Bengu said.

He added that no province deserved the EU School Building Programme (more) than the Eastern Cape.

"A cursory glance of objective South African historical records indicate that despite successive governments of oppression and dispossession, the people of this province have been consistent in their commitment to the education of their children," Professor Bengu said.

"This, perhaps more than any other factor, explains why this society has retained its humanity in spite of the dehumanisation it has, through the centuries, endured," he added.

Fifty-five schools will benefit from the donation. "This generosity becomes even better pronounced when one realises that 55 schools is equivalent to approximately 396 classrooms," he said.

For further details contact Bheki Khumalo Ministerial Spokesperson
Tel: (012) 326 0126
Cell: (012) 324 6346

Issued by The National Department of Education, 28 January 1999

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