With schools opening on Wednesday for the second term, parents, personnel and learners of Dome Combined School are left with uncertainty on when they will be moving to their new premises in Fourth Avenue. Despite an earlier anticipation in November 2025 that learners would be on the new premises during the first quarter of the 2026 academic year, there are no clear answers as yet to when this will happen with construction workers apparently not on site.

Free State MEC for Public Works and Infrastructure, Dibolelo Mance, during her oversight visit to the construction site in 2025, urged contractors and departments to intensify their efforts to complete infrastructure projects on time, saying communities deserve prompt and efficient service delivery.

Mance then emphasised the importance of accountability and urgency in delivering projects to client departments.

The MEC inspected the construction site to assess progress and ensure that measures are in place to accelerate completion and occupation.

Completion of the project has in the past been delayed due to various challenges, with the latest delay apparently being payment to the contractor.

MEC Mance’s office last week indicated that the contractor is awaiting payment from the Department of Education.

Gazette did reach out to both the contractor and the Department of Education, but has not received feedback at the time of print. Feedback will be published as soon as received.

Mance, during her visit last year, said finishing on time reduces costs and prevents unnecessary delays. She then promised to keep the project under her radar and pledged to engage with the Department of Roads and Transport regarding the condition of roads leading to the school.

By November 2025, it was said that the project was 77% completed, including 24 classrooms, three Grade R rooms, computer labs, a media centre, an administration block, a multi-purpose hall, a kitchen, a tuck shop, ablution facilities for learners and staff, and offices for heads of departments.

The contractor, White Leopard, started with the building project in August 2022. It was then said that the project would be completed by the end of January 2025.

The land where the school currently is situated was zoned for educational purposes way back in the seventies. The mobile classrooms were a temporary measure, and a permanent structure has been a need for a long time.

In 2020, engineers visited the the school premises and confirmed that the clay soil and wetland would make preparing the land and building too expensive. As safety and cost need to be considered, the decision was made to build on the premises on Fourth Avenue.

The new school premises are situated on municipal grounds, earmarked for the building of the school as a joint project of the Department of Education, and the Department of Public Works.