Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says her department needs R140-billion to fix poorly built schools.

The minister blamed corruption in provincial departments as the main factor that has led to dilapidated schools not being reconstructed.

Motshekga, who chairs the cabinet's human development cluster, was briefing the media at Parliament on her cluster's programme of action for 2010.

Despite her department allocating money to provincial administrations to address the problem, the backlog continued to grow in other provinces, Motshekga said.

She said there were many mud schools that collapsed when it rained, and cases of pupils studying under trees, particularly in rural areas.

Motshekga said she would, during her budget speech on March 25, outline how the department would try to sort out the problem.

"We are trying to speed up the process of delivery of infrastructure through (funding from the) Development Bank of Southern Africa and National Treasury."

Teacher unions said infrastructure had been an ongoing problem with the government being unable to address it.

SA Democratic Teachers Union president Thobile Ntola said the department's budget was not sufficient to fix poorly constructed schools.

Ntola said it was known that pupils in rural areas did not have important facilities, such as libraries and laboratories.

"If there has been such decisive action by the country for (the World Cup), the shift must be to education. Some parties, particularly the DA, have made education their political point scoring (game) to the neglect of important issues," he said.

He agreed with Motshekga that corruption at provincial level had hampered progress.

Ntola said that in spite of investigative reports implicating senior officials in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and North West on fraud and corruption, no action had been taken by the department.

The National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA said the backlog could be traced back to apartheid.

The organisation's president, Ezrah Ramasehla, said the minister's hands were tied in terms of how the provinces could utilise their allocation.

"We are trapped by the constitution (because) when the minister gives the budget to the provinces, MECs decide where the money goes. Instead of going into infrastructure, they take it elsewhere. Maybe the way to address it is to ring-fence (the allocation) that so much goes into infrastructure so that the minister does not depend on the goodwill of MECs."