Education ministry fails target for schools’ maintenance
The Ministry of Education and Skills Development has failed to meet its target for cyclic maintenance of schools, Minister Dr Douglas Letsholathebe has said.
He said his ministry has 207 Junior Secondary Schools, 32 Senior Secondary and two (2) Unified Schools, 32 Brigades, eight (8) Technical Colleges, four (4) Colleges of Education, six (6) Institutes of Health Sciences amongst the infrastructure.
He explained that the maintenance of the 765 Primary schools fall under Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development while the maintenance of Senior Secondary falls under the Ministry of Transport and Public Works.
“My Ministry has a programme of cyclic maintenance which is designed to attend to schools every five (5) years. My Ministry has not met the targets to complete cyclic maintenance on budget and on time for cyclic maintenance
projects. Nearly all cyclic maintenance projects run over budget and time due to scope creep and time delays or contractors deserting site,” Dr Letsholathebe told Parliament.
He explained that 18 out of 20 schools targeted for cyclic maintenance from the Financial Year 2017/18 were completed. Dr Letsholathebe who was responding to a question in Parliament stated that two (2) schools’ contracts
were terminated and then resuscitated in Financial Year 2023/24.
Dr Letsholathebe said that 24 projects were completed, six (6) are still ongoing and two (2) were suspended or terminated from a batch of 32 schools targeted in the Financial Year 2018/19.
“Out of 34 targeted schools to be maintained under the Transitional National Development Plan (TNDP) only ten (10) have a budget and so we have reduced the target to 10 and 24 schools will not be attended.
“The delays in the maintenance of schools emanate from a number of challenges which include; procurement processes, which are often subject to litigation, poor contractor performance and funding constraints.”
MP for Nata-Gweta Poulson Majaga had asked the Minister of Education and Skills Development whether all schools in Botswana which were due for maintenance were completed on budget and on time.
According to Dr Letsholathebe his Ministry is following all legal guidelines in the procurement of contractors to carry out the maintenance in the schools and this includes the prioritising of local citizen companies.
The minister stated that in order to ascertain the extent of the challenge that his Ministry is facing, the Ministry is conducting a rapid conditional assessment of educational institutions across the country.
The assessment exercise, he said, has been broken down to allow for reporting of the worst affected schools within three (3) weeks and all schools by the end of the year. Dr Letsholathebe revealed that the report will provide an up-to-date picture of the condition of all the institutions and also allow for the estimated cost of necessary repairs.
He told Parliament that the Ministry will then seek additional funding to address urgent maintenance needs in phases.
“In order to expedite the works and improve on quality my Ministry has decentralised some key personnel from the Department of Technical Services so that they will be able to better monitor maintenance projects,” the minister said, adding that they have also revised their designs going forward to improve their utility.