390 Eastern Cape schools gazetted for merger
MEC Fundile Gade merges schools to ensure better quality of education
About 390 Eastern Cape schools have been recently been gazetted by the Education MEC, Fundile Gade for realignment and merger as part of the drive to ensure that learners receive quality public education. According to the department of education, the gazetting of these small schools follows a series of meaningful meetings with parents, unions, school governing bodies and civil society leaders since they are no longer viable to run with small numbers.
The department gave the community of the affected schools a period of 30 days to submit comments confirming on the list.
The gazetted schools had less than the prescribed number of learners for either a primary or a high school hence the move to merge them.
The norm and standards prescribed that the number of learners enrolled primary learners should be 135, while a secondary should have at least 200 enrolled learners.
The realignment and merger of schools is prescribed by the South African (Act 84 of 1996)
Primarily, the program is meant to ensure that learners receive quality public education at all times as prescribed by the consultation of the land.
