From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report. Technology giant Siemens is funding and building a science and technology high school at former President Nelson Mandela’s birth town, Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape. The high school is the first in the area. Joanne Taylor reports.

Joanne Taylor:
The Mandela School of Science and Technology is a collaboration between Siemens, the Mvezo Development Trust, the Department of Basic Education (DBE), and the people of Mvezo.

It will provide an opportunity for 700 learners from 24 feeder primary schools to complete a high school education from January next year.

Siemens is funding the R100-million project and the first three years of operational costs, as part of its corporate social responsibility programme.

The school boasts reliable energy solutions from three wind turbines, a solar hybrid system to power the resource centre and administration building, energy efficient lighting and a secure water supply involving rainwater catchment systems.

The school has 25 classrooms; an assembly hall; a science laboratory; a resource centre housing a library, two computer centres and an engineering design centre. It has housing for 12 teachers, a kitchen, sports facilities, gardens, paved parking and a food garden that will form part of the practical education for agricultural studies.

The school is one of nine Mandela schools worldwide and it will partner with the Mandela school in Berlin, Germany, for guidance in the form of student and teacher exchange programmes to transfer knowledge.

SVP Quantity Surveyors director Andrè Viljoen discusses the new high school in Mvezo.

SVP Quantity Surveyors director Andrè Viljoen:
Firstly, rainwater harvesting, we are catching rainwater due to the water scarceness in this area. There are two huge reservoirs on site where we catch all the rainwater into the reservoirs, it gets pumped up to the top reservoir and then it gravitates back. We have also installed wind turbines as well as solar panels to reduce the monthly cost of the electrical bill, which is subsidized by about 20%.

A lot of people have been trained in this area, there are currently 100 people to 120 people working on site, from this direct Mvezo area. They will be left behind with skills as they have been trained through a Siemens programme into bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, plasterers as well as tillers. Except for the current construction, this is the first high school, secondary school in this area and all the kids in this area will be able to come to high school in their own Mvezo proximity.

Shannon de Ryhove:
Other news making headlines this week: Only ‘united action’ will bolster Africa’s infrastructure delivery bargaining power; Steel supplier NJR officially opens its automated Gauteng facility; and Sarens launches a 750-ton-capacity hydraulic crane.

The bargaining power of individual African countries to both accelerate infrastructure delivery and insist upon higher levels of localisation, technology transfer and skills development can only be achieved through “united action”, says South Africa’s Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba.

Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba

Steel products supplier NJR Steel Reinforcing officially launched its fully automated factory in Northlands Industrial Park, in Gauteng, last month, during which the facilities and the latest technology in steel reinforcing were introduced.

NJR Steel Reinforcing branch manager Patrick van Gool

Heavy-lifting solutions multinational Sarens, of Belgium, has officially launched a new 750-ton hydraulic crane, manufactured by Germany-based construction machinery manufacturer Liebherr.

Sarens SA operations director Lyle Tapinos

Shannon de Ryhove:
That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.