Speaker, last week the hon Deputy Minister of Basic Education joined the bandwagon of ANC and ANC Youth League affiliates who had attacked the DA-led government in the Western Cape on school closures. He said, and I quote from Hansard:
As we look at the challenges of infrastructure in schools that we have to establish, we notice that 27 schools are being closed in the Western Cape while 49 are being built in the Eastern Cape.
What a delicious irony that just days after he spoke in this House, ANC-led provincial governments in at least two other provinces announced that they too will be closing more than 70 schools - underperforming schools where student numbers are dwindling and pass rates are falling.
The Northern Cape government has announced that they will close at least 20 schools and KwaZulu-Natal announced that it would close at least 56 schools. I wonder what the Deputy Minister's response will be today. He need not worry because those of us in these benches know that school rationalisation is a proper and legitimate process. [Time expired.]