Johannesburg – As part of enforcing public-private partnerships to enhance sustainable development, the De Beers Group unveiled a multimillion rand school in partnership with the Free State department of education in Kroonstad, Free State.
The newly refurbished Phuleng Primary School opened its doors to pupils on Friday.
Through this partnership, an investment of R27 million was endowed, as De Beers Fund and the department contributed R17 million and R10 million respectively to the build the school.
Handover of keys from @KST_DWSD and @DeebeersGroup it’s such a joyful moment for the school pic.twitter.com/hsxvpV0sb8
— MEC Tate Makgoe (@MECTateMakgoe) November 26, 2021
Located in the heart of the community, the school will house 842 learners and 22 educators.
According to De Beers, the established partnership is orchestrated to be the centre that aims to drive digital innovation, accelerate skills development and supporting educational programmes.
Speaking at the handover, De Beers head of corporate affairs, Innocent Mabusela said, “De Beers fully supports the DBE ‘s national agenda to provide basic education to South African children.”
“This includes the rural school development programmes. Through our long-term partnership with this department, we have made a significant a long lasting contribution through implementing infrastructure projects,” he added.
The school boasts 20 new classrooms, 17 ablution facilities, a nutrition centre and a sporting field.
The school incorporates of science laboratories, media centres, refurbishments of entire school and classrooms.
Mabusela said the infrastructure supported will now create safe environment for both learners and educators, as the old infrastructure was in brink of collapse.
Speaking during the ceremony, Free State Education MEC Tate Makgoe said this massive investment goes a long way to improve learning and to deliver quality education.
“We wish to express our sincere gratitude to De Beers and KST for choosing to partner with us in delivering this state-of-art school,” said Makgoe.
“Our partnership with De Beers emanates from 14 years ago more especially within this municipality of Moqhaka and Ngwathe.
“De Beers spent R1.1 million in supporting educational projects in our province,” said the delighted Makgoe.
Over 60 schools have benefited through this partnership, where they have been refurbished and state-of-art modernised schools being constructed.
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