21 Feb 2025

Government is making efforts to provide institutional accommodation to teachers, with a primary focus of providing the houses on sharing basis to address shortage.

Minister of Child Welfare and Basic Education, Dr Nono Kgafela-Mokoka says the ministry currently provides a total of 202 institutional houses teachers from the six government junior sercondary schools in Selebi Phikwe. In addition, she said teachers from the only senior secondary school in the town had 78 official houses.

Dr Kgafela-Mokoka who was responding to a question in Parliament, also said there were 415 teachers working across the schools in Selebi Phikwe, 291 in junior schools and 124 in the senior school. Of these, she said, 365 teachers were accommodated in institutional houses, while 50 were currently on private accommodation due to inadequate official housing shortage.

Furthermore, she said a total of 190 teachers shared accommodation across Selebi Phikwe’s secondary schools. These include 50 married couples, 30 at Selebi Phikwe Secondary and 20 at junior secondary schools.

‘Official accommodation is allocated to staff as and when available. However, due to fluctuating availability of houses, I am unable to provide a specific waiting period for those who are not yet housed” she said. Ms Kgafela-Mokoka said support staff members were not provided with accommodation in Selebi Phikwe.

Mr Kaizer had asked Ministry of Child Welfare and Basic Education to update Parliament about state of accommodation for teachers in Selebi Phikwe and number of houses availed. He wanted to know the number of houses for junior and secondary school teachers, including support staff, total number of teachers in official houses and those that were not.

Mr Kaizer also asked the ministry to state the number of teachers that shared accommodation, including married couples as well as to know the waiting period for such. ENDS