Start making an effort on your kids’ education

The basic education department shut down more “illegal” schools and parents had to scramble to place the affected pupils.

There is no blaming the authorities. Yes, schools are mushrooming as private institutions in an effort to bypass an education system they have no faith in – but did the parents research them, verify their legality or simply search the status of their registration?

Teachers are preparing their students for the final year exams, but somewhere sits a Vusi in Ivory Park without a clue as to where he must go to for school tomorrow.

We investigate thoroughly to see if our partners are cheating, but we cannot investigate the institutions we trust with our children’s education, ultimately their future?

This speaks volumes about the effort parents are willing to put in toward their children: lacklustre, minimal – these words spring to mind.

Parents should register their Grade 1 and Grade 8 children within the mandated registration periods, but there is always that choir that will perform in January, singing to the tune that their children have not been placed – ignoring the fact that they did not register on time, or did not bother to register at all.

At what point do parents actually take an active role in their children’s future and protect with everything they have?

While some say that in the Ivory Park matter, it was commendable that the parents wanted a private-based education, willing to pay more than the free education of the government – but what value is it now, when the school is defunct, gates closed?

How much effort does it really require to verify the legal status of the educational institutions we send our children to – or do we just pick schools with a willy-nilly attitude? How can parents make such a grave error with their most precious assets.

And now, somewhere in some school, classroom numbers have soared – be it by one extra pupils or by 10. The teacher-pupil ratio has changed – because of parents’ failure to apply due diligence towards their child’s education.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo.

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