A strategic drive to improve learner performance in KZN

Sir
Following the steep decline of the National Senior Certificate results in KwaZulu-Natal, the MEC for Education in the province, Neliswa Peggy Nkonyeni, MPL and the HoD, Nkosinathi SP Sishi, PhD, convened an urgent meeting to analyse the results, as well as to come up with clear strategies to improve the performance of the province in all Grades, especially Grade 12.
Invited to the meeting were the members of Top Management, District Managers, Examination Section officials at a provincial and district level, as well as Circuit Managers responsible for curriculum.
What informed the purpose of the gathering is a bold statement by the Department that, “the Province of KwaZulu-Natal cannot make excuses for the decline of results” and that the province takes full responsibility for the National Senior Certificate results.
The Head of Department started his preliminary remarks by thanking all educators for their hard work, dedication and their contribution towards improving the skills base of the province, as well as that of the country. “One of our immediate responsibilities is to come up with a well thought out intervention strategy to assist the 31 188 learners who qualify for the supplementary examinations starting on February 2,” said the HoD.
In her opening remarks, the MEC said, “we need to be turbo-charged and we need to bounce back. If anyone thinks that KZN is sinking, we need to tell them that KwaZulu-Natal is unsinkable.”
In her address entitled “Operation Bounce Back”, the MEC called for honesty in the way the Department’s analyses it’s performance. The MEC reiterated the HoD statement that the Departments’ need to support those learners who are going to sit for supplementary examinations.
“We need to look at the possibility of re-admitting those learners who did not succeed during the 2014 National Senior Certificate examinations. Most of these learners come from destitute families and we cannot leave them just like that,” said the MEC.
The MEC urged all the attendees to be positive about what the Department is going to achieve in 2015. “We cannot afford to decline again, we need to move up. We need to convene a summit where we will strategise once more together with our stakeholders,” said the MEC emphatically.
As per the MECs request for honesty during the deliberations, all contributors did so with “brutal” honesty, with the view to contribute towards the improvement of results in the province. Issues like budgetary constraints, insufficient tools of trade, lack of requisite skills in some instances and various other issues were raised by the officials.
As a way forward, the HOD announced that all districts will have to face the panel of Top Management members and present their turn around strategies.
“This is going to start this week,” said the Head of Department.
“After the Top Management has met all the districts, a team of Top Management members are going to draft the turnaround strategy which will be presented to the bigger gathering that is going to include other social partners including SGB formations, unions, business fraternity, academics, student formations and all other significant stakeholders.
After this meeting, the turnaround strategy is going to be presented to the MEC.
“All of this is going to happen within the period of a week,” said the HoD.
In the final analysis, it was agreed that the Department will have to do something out of the ordinary to lift itself up from the current quagmire.
It was agreed that KZN is going to have an immediate programme to support learners writing supplementary exams. It was also agreed that learners who failed Grade 12 will be encouraged to re-register in the 2015 academic year.
Sihle Mlotshwa, KZN Education Department