INFRASTRUCTURAL RESTORATION

Although it is clear to the HSRP that educational and cultural excellence are the non-negotiable qualities defining a good school, we are also persuaded that learners and teachers need to be able to learn and teach in reasonably comfortable circumstances. It is all very well to say that children can be taught under a tree, but what happens during a lightning storm or when the tree is cut down? Added to this, many existing school buildings are an important part of our South African heritage which was ignored and marginalised throughout the apartheid years.

Having no running water, blocked sewerage systems, inadequate electricity supplies, or broken desks and chairs can impact most severely on children’s ability to concentrate and for the effective functioning of a classroom. We also have a unique and rather sad reality in South Africa in that boarding schools are necessary to cater for the many scholars without parents or effective parenting available to them. For this reason some attention and funding has to go towards basic, safe infrastructural development.

Our architectural team has worked extremely hard during this year on finalising and updating their reports on the state of our schools’ buildings and services. We now have a comprehensive report on each school which, in addition to the reports on the current state of educational standards by the IQAA, includes an analysis of the most urgent infrastructural needs. These reports have become a useful and informative fundraising tool.

Infrastructural considerations emcompass both the restoration of historically significant (and useful) buildings, such as these on the St Matthew’s (top left) and Lemana campuses, and development of adequate basic facilities. For example, Healdtown students made use of the dilapidated ‘long drop’ toilets (above left) until their use was recently banned by the school’s principal, leaving the more modern toilet block, consisting of only four toilets, to serve the needs of over 100 students.