JOHANNESBURG SOUTH – Gauteng Education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi, wants to ensure that learners and teachers have all the facilities they need to achieve their full educational potential.
Addressing the media on the state of readiness for the 2016 academic year, on Tuesday, November 10, Lesufi said the department will put more focus on what is happening inside the classroom. “We have been preoccupied about sanitation, information and communication technologies (ICT) and school governing bodies (SGBs), now we need to ensure that our teachers are teaching and that hey have the facilities to take the learners to the next grade,” he said.
Lesufi noted that they are ready for the 2016 academic year and that the admissions applications process has closed.
For the first time this year, all Gauteng learners wrote a common examination in Grades three, six, nine, 10 and 11 for gateway subjects including mathematics, English first additional language, natural science, accounting and economics. This is part of standardising performance across the system and in this way teachers’ performances can also be measured.
The MEC also indicated that his department is determined to eradicate terms like former Model C and township schools. Schools in Gauteng will be based on performance; there will be high, average, low or poor performance schools. “This will help parents who want to place their children in these schools. I am fanatic about performance. I want the education system to perform. Also the rotation of principals in schools will be implemented because some principals have been in some schools for too long. This will help promote social cohesion,” explained Lesufi.
He also said Grade 12 learners wrote preliminary examinations in September including the 10 critical subjects which are also part of the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP). The analysis of the preliminary results shows some stable performance over the past few years, however, the performance also highlights some areas of concern particularly in accounting, mathematics and maths literacy. The performance of learners in economics and physical science, where the majority of learners are performing slightly above 30 per cent, is also concerning. “Thirty per cent is not our ideal pass mark in Gauteng. We want these learners to improve that is why parents need to intervene and assist where they can,” said Lesufi.
