More than 3 000 schools in SA still have inappropriate buildings – DBE

2026-03-03 - 11:43

The department of basic education (DBE) has confirmed that 3 523 of 22 381 schools in the country still have inappropriate buildings. The highest number of these is in the Eastern Cape, with 1 538, followed by the Free State with 19, Gauteng with 115, KwaZulu-Natal with 978, Limpopo with 562, Mpumalanga with 93, Northern Cape with 37, North West with 166 and Western Cape with 15. The DBE’s Ramasedi Mafoko briefed the portfolio committee on basic education on school infrastructure backlogs on Tuesday. Mafoko told the committee that the department was facing a challenge of an expanding education system in a constrained fiscal environment. “Despite increased funding allocations, the unmet demand for education infrastructure remains significant. There are quite a lot of schools built from inappropriate materials that are rapidly deteriorating in condition and need to be replaced,” said Mafoko. He highlighted a challenge of growth in enrolment, which puts pressure on the system to expand rapidly. “There is overcrowding and congestion in no-fee and low-fee schools in critically underserved, vulnerable communities and it severely limits the capacity to accommodate pupils applying for admission to schools. ALSO READ: 66% of children in SA schools don’t pay school fees “A sizeable portion of our school infrastructure system is significantly degraded and unusable, given the history of under-maintenance.” The deterioration is accelerated by social and environmental factors such as vandalism and climate change. School infrastructure vs budget According to Mafoko, there are 379 521 available classrooms in the country and 12 738 024 pupils, meaning 33.6 pupils on average per classroom. “It indicates that we actually shouldn’t be having an overcrowding problem. The challenge we have is that these classrooms are not where the pupils and parents are because when parents move for better economic opportunities, from the rural Limpopo into Polokwane and down to Gauteng and Western Cape, they move with their children and leave those classrooms behind in those areas.” Consequently, 43 677 more classrooms are needed to accommodate these pupils. However, the department is battling a funding crisis, said Mafoko. If the department is to address its infrastructure challenge and reach its 2030 target, it would need R57 billion annually. Currently, the education infrastructure grant (EIG) is R49.9 billion. “It means that what we have in our kitty in terms of the EIG is not even sufficient to cover our requirements for one financial year. However, what we are doing is to ensure that provinces spend their money on EIG. “We cannot afford to have underspending on the educational infrastructure grant in the midst of this huge shortfall that we have,” said Mafoko. ALSO READ: Government accused of disguising funding cuts to 400 ‘rich schools’ in Gauteng Currently, the department spends a large chunk of its infrastructure budget on building new or replacing infrastructure. “We would like this to flip over such that a large chunk of our investment should be on maintenance, rehabilitation, and renovation. “But we still have this current challenge where a large chunk of our investment is on new or replacement of schools, followed by upgrading, then maintenance and rehabilitation.”