disasters.
HOUSEHOLDS TO TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION
Telkom is a provider of the landline telephone services in the Nyandeni. The municipality’s role is currently to facilitate the implementation and communicate with Telkom and other mobile network service providers regarding areas of priority for connections.
Information received from interviews with cellular telephone and SABC operators suggests that approximately 90% of areas in the Nyandeni municipality have adequate network signal coverage. There are at least three known towers located in Weis, Mt Hope and Marubeni villages.
EDUCATION
The role of the Nyandeni municipality in Education is to facilitate and cooperate with the Department of Education for the provision of schools, education programs. In particular the municipality needs to communicate information in terms of key priority areas needing education infrastructure and services.
Education challenges for the municipal areas include low levels of literacy, poor schooling infrastructure and accessibility of schools (travel distances by especially rural pupils to school)
Most of the education institutions in the municipality cater for lower level schooling from grade nil up to grade 12. There are about two FTE colleges, viz Mngazi and Libode known in the municipal areas.
Analysis of statistics given by the district office of the Department of Education reflects challenges regarding use of available schooling infrastructure. For example, out of existing 426 schools located in the Nyandeni area, 43% are said
by the District office to be highly overcrowded, 21% are overcrowded, 30% is functioning normal while 1% is highly underutilized and another 4% is also under utilized. The following figure shows the distribution of schooling facilities in the municipal areas.
Figure 6: Types of existing schools
Existing education institutions in Nyandeni LM
Secondary schools
10%
Combined 57%
Early child Dev schools
2%
Tertiary Education
0%
Primary schools
31%
The table below shows that Libode district accounted for 14% of the entire province’s classroom backlogs by 2006.
Figure 7: Classroom backlogs by district for EC Province
District No. of
Classrooms Total Backlog %
BIZANA 1868 1083 8%
BUTTERWORTH 2897 675 5%
COFIMVABA 2098 435 3%
CRADOCK 932 52 0%
EAST LONDON 4247 528 4%
ENGCOBO 1667 606 5%
FORT BEAUFORT 2082 78 1%
GRAAFF-REINET 1056 38 0%
GRAHAMSTOWN 1080 69 1%
IDUTYWA 2391 870 6%
KING WILLIAMS TOWN 4161 352 3%
LADY FRERE 1425 202 2%
LIBODE 2913 1861 14%
LUSIKISIKI 2744 1543 11%
MALUTI 1609 471 3%
MT FLETCHER 1427 288 2%
District No. of
Classrooms Total Backlog %
MT FRERE 1894 538 4%
PORT ELIZABETH 5667 311 2%
QUEENSTOWN 1924 195 1%
QUMBU 1724 651 5%
STERKSPRUIT 1832 305 2%
UITENHAGE 2619 187 1%
UMTATA 2919 1466 11%
UMZIMKULU 1339 649 5%
Grand Total 54515 13453 100%
Source: EC Department of Education
Nyandeni district (education department demarcation) backlogs for additional classrooms as shown in the above table are the most highest in the entire province. However, this has not discouraged 124 769 learners from enrolling for 2005 academic year. However, new stats are needed to understand current situation in 2009. It is also encouraging that female learners show keen interest in accessing education opportunities.
The figure below gives gender distribution among the enrolled learners in public schools located within the Libode region.
Figure 8: Gender distribution among enrolled learners in public schools Leaner Gender distribution in public schools
Female 51% 59% 52%
Male 49% 41% 48%
Primary Secondary Combined
Source: EC Department of Education
SAFETY AND SECURITY
The responsibility for providing safety and security services rests with the South African Police Services Department (SAPS). The municipality supports crime prevention efforts by participating in local policing forums even though these are said to be malfunctioned. There are at least three known police stations and a one prison located in the municipal areas.
Crime prevention is a top ten priority for the municipality in 2008/9. Information from local SAPS suggests that there are five main crimes that are common in the Nyandeni areas. According to the station commissioner these include in the order of priority, rape, stock theft, burglary & house breaking, theft and aggravated robbery. In addition to this the representative forum also acknowledged that domestic violence is common among local people.
In terms of current programmes to deal with crime prevention, reduction and rehabilitation of offenders as well as support for victims, the station commander listed the following:
Thuthuzela care centre to support the victims of sexual offence which is located at St Barnabas Hospital in Ngqeleni.
Training of CPFs aimed at combating the spread of crime and run awareness campaigns.
HEALTH SERVICES
Health services in the municipal area are competence of the District and Province. OR Tambo DM is responsible for municipal health while the Provincial Department of Health (DoH) is responsibility for the primary and secondary health services. The department of Health is currently implementing the following programmes in the Nyandeni Municipal areas.
• HIV/ Aids monitoring and management
• Mother Child Women’s health
• Management of the spread of Tuberculosis
• Mental Health
• Health and Hygiene promotion in schools
• Conducting of environmental health surveys and tests
• Nutrition programme implementation at schools
HIV/Aids is a public health concern that the municipality should to at least monitor and proactively contribute to the reduction of the impact and the spread of HIV/Aids among its communities.
Antenatal statistics from local district health office indicate that the prevalence rate is as high as 50% - 60% of the tested cases in local clinics. These are mainly females who participate in voluntary testing during their regular pregnancy visits to local clinics. In view of this problem the municipality has made the fighting of HIV/Aids spread a top ten priority in 2010/2011 has provided for the development and implementation of a work place Aids Plan. There are also planned awareness events to be promoted during the course of the year.
From an infrastructure point of view, there are currently 30 medical & primary health care facilities in the Nyandeni municipality. Of these 28 are clinics and 2 are hospitals located in Libode and Ngqeleni. Given a national benchmark of 1 clinic per 10 000 households, it would mean that Nyandeni is well served with facilities. However, the main challenge raised at the representative forums is the accessibility of them and the quality of services received in the public clinics.
WELFARE SERVICES
Welfare services are a primary competence of the Department of Social Development. Nyandeni municipality plays a facilitative role in the identification of needs and cooperates with the DoW in the implementation of such services.
The district office of the Department of Social Development currently runs the following social development and poverty alleviation Programmes:
• Food security
• Women’s co-op
• NPO Development
• Youth Development
• HIV / Aids home based care support
• Poverty alleviation & Livelihood support
• Day Care Centres
According to the regional manager the key challenges facing the delivery of sustainable social development programmes in Nyandeni still include:
Lack of financial skills among people running projects
Poor incentives in terms of regular incomes which tend to demoralise volunteers and cause them to withdraw their participation
Lack of proper monitoring due to insufficient staffing