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President Zuma expresses concern about children out of school

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 09:51

President Jacob Zuma says government is concerned about a Statistic South Africa (StatsSA) report that more than 200 000 children across the country are not attending school.

“There should be no corner of our country in which children are still denied an education while we celebrate freedom,” said Zuma at the Freedom Day celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

This situation continues despite the fact that government has established no-fee schools in all provinces across the country and that more than 40 000 children received a subsidy to enable their access to pre-school education. Furthermore at higher education level, student loans are being converted to bursaries for qualifying final year students.

On service delivery, President Zuma told the crowd that as part of undoing the legacy of apartheid’s Group Areas Act, government will in the next five years be upgrading informal settlements in municipalities to provide security of tenure and access to basic services.

“We are also committing government to construct 80 000 mixed income rental housing units in order to enable low income earners to live closer to where they work”. In this way, the country will dismantle the apartheid landscape, which dictated where people should live and work on the basis of the colour of their skin.

A BuaNews report edited by the Skills Portal