{"id":97825,"date":"2026-04-28T13:05:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding"},"modified":"2026-04-28T13:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:15:11","slug":"gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding","title":{"rendered":"Gauteng Education Dept Needs R35bn for Overcrowding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Gauteng Education MEC Lebogang Maile said the department needs about R35 billion to address the overcrowding crisis in public schools.<\/p>\n<p>The overcrowding in both primary and high schools is creating a serious challenge, with the number of learners far exceeding the recommended figure.<\/p>\n<p>About 2.8 million learners are enrolled in the province, which is double the number of pupils three decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>Maile addressed the overcrowding crisis during a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The Gauteng Department of Education said 200 new schools are needed to ease pressure on existing ones, which would cost no less than R35 billion to build.<\/p>\n<p>However, this is far beyond what the province can afford, given its annual budget of just over R70 billion.<\/p>\n<p>While the recommended teacher-to-learner ratio is no more than 1:40, Maile admitted that the province is operating well above that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need R35 Billion. So, what we need to do is to think about the boss and find ways to deal with these pressures. So, we are looking into Public-Private Partnerships. We need to get people who will build schools for us, and we pay later over a longer period.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maile said with the department\u2019s current budget, they can only build seven schools per year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. Gauteng Education MEC Lebogang Maile said the department needs about R35 billion to address the overcrowding crisis in public schools. The overcrowding in both primary and high schools is creating a serious challenge, with the number of learners far exceeding the recommended figure. About 2.8 million learners are enrolled in the province, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":97824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,5,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-97825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-economy","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gauteng Education Dept Needs R35bn for Overcrowding - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gauteng Education MEC Lebogang Maile said the department needs about R35 billion to address the overcrowding crisis in p ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gauteng Education Dept Needs R35bn for Overcrowding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gauteng Education MEC Lebogang Maile said the department needs about R35 billion to address the overcrowding crisis in p ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-28T13:05:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-28T13:15:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/04\/sm_1777369437.289229.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Gauteng Education Dept Needs R35bn for Overcrowding\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-28T13:05:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-28T13:15:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding\"},\"wordCount\":224,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/04\/sm_1777369437.289229.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"economy\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/gauteng-education-dept-needs-r35bn-for-overcrowding\",\"name\":\"Gauteng Education Dept Needs R35bn for Overcrowding - 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