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MITCHELL'S PLAIN proudly boasts the school with biggest Education Centre in the province.

Finance minister, Mr Trevor Manuel, together with the premier, Mr Ebrahim Rasool, and education MEC, Mr Cameron Dugmore, opened the Spine Road High Education Centre last week.

The facility boasts a state-of-the-art multi-media centre, a gym, conference room, museum, library, indoor sports facility and a 1 500m² hall.

School principal, Mr Riyaadh Najaar, could not contain his excitement at the launch.

He described it as a major centre with "everything to fulfill the needs of all the learners at our school".

"Development and construction of the centre was funded by various sources, but most of the funds came from people in the community and pioneers, colleagues and friends of the school," said Najaar.

"We appreciate every cent and thank everyone who was involved. A vision for a centre like this was born in the late 1990's, but funds restricted us from getting it off the ground. Soon after friends and colleagues heard what we envisaged, they got on board and today we have a massive centre in the heart of the community."

Manuel said he was thrilled to be associated with the opening of such an outstanding facility.

He said, however, despite attempts to make communities more sustainable through opening centres similar to Spine Road, there were forces which were still trying to break society down.

"Twenty-two years ago I visited this school to speak here," said Manuel. "I asked those gathered to commit to action against the government of the time. Our young people then arose and stood up to gain democracy. Today we have democracy, but it appears there are some who wants to rob us of our freedom. The state is no longer the enemy. We now need to focus on the struggle for freedom from abuse. Abuse of women and children is real. We need to be freed from the risk of substance abuse and tik. We must continue to wage a struggle against crime. There is a different enemy today. I want to conclude by saying what I said at this school 22 years ago, 'action commandant!' to battle comrades."

Rasool, who taught at Spine Road in the 1980s, said Mitchell's Plain was identified as one of 15 communities in the province to be focused on. "If we don't address the drug problem we will be doomed," said Rasool.

"We will concentrate a large amount of money to stabilise the area and put in place drug rehabilitation centres and necessary programmes. Educators need to be more observant of the learners. They should also persuade our learners to lead positive lives and to stay away from drugs. We need our educators for their human interventions and not just their technical abilities in the classroom."

Dugmore said there was an absence of hope in certain communities, but that "this education centre is a beacon of hope for Mitchell's Plain and the province".

"No other school in the province can compare their facilities to the facilities here. This is the fruit of hard labour and sweat."

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