Good morning, members of the media and, through you, the entire nation of South Africa.

We have called this media conference as we approach the end of the financial year 2022/23.

The Council of Education Minister met recently and discussed a number of issues affecting the basic education sector. A considerable amount of time was spent on the issue of school infrastructure. As a sector we had been working on programmes to roll out school infrastructure across the country, but the matter became even more urgent after COVID restrictions were lifted. We were faced with a major overcrowding crisis that we need to urgently address.

After CEM we were due to host a media briefing to update the nation regarding the work done on school infrastructure  but we received the news of the demise of Free State MEC Tate Makgoe, may his soul rest in peace. In the same week we received news of the death of LangaLam Viki whose body was found in a pit latrine at Mcwangele JSS in the Eastern Cape. I would like to repeat government’s heartfelt condolences on this tragedy.

You might recall when Lumka Mketwa died in a pit latrine in 2018, I said in a statement that Lumka had died in an undignified manner that I found incredibly disturbing. I added that, at the time, to know that as a sector we had not been able to address these infrastructure issues fast enough, for a number of reasons, broke my heart.

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