Rich school, turf your Astro!

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Fish Eagle

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Just wondering whether anyone else has the same problem as some residents in our neighbourhood. Local school constructs state of the art synthetic surface hockey pitch, including fancy flood lights and then rents it out to local adult hockey club - thereby changing a school sports ground into a public sports amenity. The noise emanating from the playing field is a serious disturbance after dark and impacts negatively on the quality of life in an upmarket residential area. And the local sports club is but 3km down the road!

Question: should affluent schools be spending such big money on "nice-to-haves" (R5mil in this case) when Rome is burning in RSA education. Internationally recognised literacy and numeracy tests show that grade 3 and grade 6 are performing dismally (in some cases only 14% success!!).
What is more important - building more nice-to-have sports facilities in the "leafy suburbs" schools or embarking on a major national drive to improve the standard of education in RSA? To put it bluntly - do we need star hockey players or do we need scientists, engineers, doctors, entrepeneurs and creative, open minds? Which of these is going to create jobs for the unemployed - and a better South Africa for all?
 
If they're spending their own/parents money then what's the problem? I highly doubt it was paid for by the government.
 
Said affluent school's standard of education is probably much higher than the SA average and they are now ensuring that their standard of sport is well above too. If they pay for it, why not?

We do need much better hockey players in this country! :)
 
Fish Eagle said:
...
Question: should affluent schools be spending such big money on "nice-to-haves" (R5mil in this case) when Rome is burning in RSA education. Internationally recognised literacy and numeracy tests show that grade 3 and grade 6 are performing dismally (in some cases only 14% success!!).
What is more important - building more nice-to-have sports facilities in the "leafy suburbs" schools or embarking on a major national drive to improve the standard of education in RSA? To put it bluntly - do we need star hockey players or do we need scientists, engineers, doctors, entrepeneurs and creative, open minds? Which of these is going to create jobs for the unemployed - and a better South Africa for all?
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Rome might be burning in goverment school but not in private schools....
Those so called international recognized tests were probably on government schools or a mixture of both (where the governments school would outnumber the private schools, hence drop the standard)
 
I happened to have gone to this affluent school and my brother is still there and imo it is on the school grounds so what is the problem? The majority of the good hockey players in the school all went to southern suburb schools before the astro was built. And this school has always prided itself on its good hockey teams.

I think if u buy a house near a school, then u have to face any consequence that comes with it. These floodlights have also been specially designed to only eminate light onto the pitch and not to the surrounding areas. I have seen this myself.

And yes, elysian, the standard of education in the school is very high so why not focus on one of its main sports? (The school was recently included into the Top 100 Schools in SA).
 
I think the issue is more the "rents it out to local adult hockey club" than the astro facility itself.
 
@Fish_Eagle :

Your approach is far too simplistic.
They paid for that with their own funds.
They also pay their fair share of rates and taxes.

The taxes are supposed to be spent on ensuring that we have a fair supply of scientists, engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs and creative, open minds.

You cannot expect one community to build schools in rural areas, when the elected government was put into place to do exactly that.

Try pointing more fingers at government, and less fingers at a community supporting itself.
 
hmmm if the standard of education is very low in the school why are they spending millions on an astro and not on more/better experianced teachers or educational facilities?

my alma mater spent something like 10 million on teachers and a new library as well as a huge computer center before even thinking about spending on sports facilities
 
SteveO said:
hmmm if the standard of education is very low in the school why are they spending millions on an astro and not on more/better experianced teachers or educational facilities?

my alma mater spent something like 10 million on teachers and a new library as well as a huge computer center before even thinking about spending on sports facilities
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It's a Private school. Who said they are not up to scratch? He was refering to the education system in SA. Which as it stands refers to Government schooling not private schooling
 
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SteveO said:
hmmm if the standard of education is very low in the school why are they spending millions on an astro and not on more/better experianced teachers or educational facilities?

my alma mater spent something like 10 million on teachers and a new library as well as a huge computer center before even thinking about spending on sports facilities
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Who said that that particular school has a problem with their educational facilities?
He was asking: "should affluent schools be spending such big money on "nice-to-haves" (R5mil in this case) when Rome is burning in RSA education" - i.e. The Opening Poster seems to think that that one school should have spent that money on saving RSA education.

EDIT: What Pitbull said.
 
The school is a government school as I attended it. And they have to rent it to local adult hockey clubs as well as surrounding schools in order to pay back the cost of the astro.
 
MissM said:
The school is a government school as I attended it. And they have to rent it to local adult hockey clubs as well as surrounding schools in order to pay back the cost of the astro.
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Government school :eek:

/retract all my previous posts
 
Fish Eagle said:
Just wondering whether anyone else has the same problem as some residents in our neighbourhood. Local school constructs state of the art synthetic surface hockey pitch, including fancy flood lights and then rents it out to local adult hockey club - thereby changing a school sports ground into a public sports amenity. The noise emanating from the playing field is a serious disturbance after dark and impacts negatively on the quality of life in an upmarket residential area.
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No I do not have the same problem of living in an upmarket residential area with a high quality of life. Rather, I have the luxury of living with the salt-of-the-earth where our quality of life is what we make. Our sympathies for the rich and famous are very limited.
 
The school that I went to had an astro turf on the property. It was a goverment school, but has a 100% matric pass rate almost every year.. Simply put the astro vastly improves the standard of play, and having one on campus makes it easier for supporters.

As for renting the astro turfs out, it seems like an easy way to make some money on the investment.
 
Fish Eagle said:
Just wondering whether anyone else has the same problem as some residents in our neighbourhood. Local school constructs state of the art synthetic surface hockey pitch, including fancy flood lights and then rents it out to local adult hockey club - thereby changing a school sports ground into a public sports amenity. The noise emanating from the playing field is a serious disturbance after dark and impacts negatively on the quality of life in an upmarket residential area. And the local sports club is but 3km down the road!
Click to expand...

Hmm.. let me see now... not actually, no.

...it is kind of a peculiar and specific issue you have there now isn't it? :p

Bottom line though: check the by laws of your municipality (which is what I'd guess your fancy school did before sinking millions into this facility) if there is nothing against it then you're stuffed.
 
Pitbull said:
Government school :eek:

/retract all my previous posts
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Dammit Pitbull!
There goes my Pitbull is my hero buff!

I also retract anything I said about the astroturf and the school, with apologies, but, opening poster was not too clear.

Freaking wasting our tax money again.

I bet that the municipality had some extra cash lying around after the rates hikes that they had to spend before getting another boost from government, and, spending on service delivery would have been too cheap.
 
davemc said:
Dammit Pitbull!
There goes my Pitbull is my hero buff!

I also retract anything I said about the astroturf and the school, with apologies, but, opening poster was not too clear.

Freaking wasting our tax money again.

I bet that the municipality had some extra cash lying around after the rates hikes that they had to spend before getting another boost from government, and, spending on service delivery would have been too cheap.
Click to expand...

Its probably one of those government schools in name only that generates most of their income from fees.
 
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