Academics our core business says Tech’s new principal

The principal of the Technical High School (HTS) Potchefstroom, Mr Dries de Beer, was appointed precisely a year ago. In November last year, the Department of Education made it official.

Mr De Beer made a quiet entrance at the school and in Potchefstroom – almost like a reverend ascending a pulpit. All eyes were on him, but there were no trumpet calls. And his congregation – in this instance, the learners, parents, and teachers – gave him their undivided attention, taking to heart all the wise words he has spoken so far.

The North West Department of Education seconded him to be transferred from Klerksdorp to Potchefstroom when the previous principal of HTS retired. De Beer saw it as an opportunity for new beginnings.

With 14 years’ experience at Schoonspruit Technical High School in Klerksdorp, he had all the knowledge and drive to take the reins from his predecessor in 2020. He gained his experience in teaching and management from most of the secondary schools in Klerksdorp.

After he had completed a degree in education at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, he reported for two years’ army duty. His first teacher’s appointment was at Klerksdorp High School. Then he was promoted to Technical High School Klerkdorp and, after that, to Wesvalia High School. Schoonspruit was his last stop in Klerksdorp. “I was very happy at Schoonspruit and enjoyed the opportunity to help expand the school by establishing technical centres. We also built more classrooms and a hostel.” It is hard to believe that De Beer’s first career choice was not teaching.

He first considered studying theology to become a reverend. It was only when he reached his last year in high school that one of his teachers persuaded him to apply for a bursary to become a teacher himself – “to keep your options open,” he remembers the teacher saying. Maybe, the teacher realised that teaching and preaching are actually very close. De Beer passed his application with flying colours and thought he couldn’t let the opportunity go by. Still, he wasn’t quite sure he had made the right choice. “After my first day of teaching, I instantly knew that I would like to do this for the rest of my life. “The Lord has a way and He knows where He wants you to be,” says De Beer.

According to him, HTS Potchefstroom, with its 915 learners, is not much larger than Schoonspruit with its 830 learners. The learners only have different challenges: “I have lots of respect for our learners at HTS Potchefstroom whose first challenge is to arrive at school on time,” says the typical principal with a smile.

His empathy is clear when he notices that most of the learners do not live near the school but are willing to spend a large part of their day travelling to and from school. “They don’t have the luxury of parents dropping them off. The learners stay far from the school and commute from Ikageng daily, as far as Klerksdorp and Ventersdorp. For these learners, the hostel fees are too expensive. Only the learners from Gauteng stay in the hostel.”

According to De Beer, discipline is not the biggest challenge in the school. “It is difficult to create a common bond and culture in the school when learners are from such diverse whereabouts; the restrictions of Covid-19 make it worse,” he adds. In the past, the sports activities brought the learners closer together, but Athletics South Africa wrote a letter to all the schools, prohibiting all sports activities.

With Covid-19, we are using the alternate day teaching model, which means 50 per cent of the school attends school today and the other 50 per cent come to school tomorrow. Teachers have to teach the work twice with only 50 per cent progress and the learners don’t get the opportunity to get to know each other.

De Beer’s biggest goal is to establish a learning culture in the school: “Academics is our core business and everything we do will be to get better academic results.” He says the school has recently revamped the boys’ bathrooms, fixed the wooden floors in classrooms and spruced up the wooden desks – to make the atmosphere more attractive and promote a better learning environment. “We have excellent teachers and I know if we can change the learners’ mindsets a little bit, we can achieve really good results,” says De Beer.

For the learners of HTS, academics is challenging because, unlike the mainstream schools, HTS only has difficult subjects and the learners don’t have a variety of choices. They can only choose between mathematics, physics, life science, accounting, technical drawing, computer application technology, and business studies.

Although not everything is on the learners’ side, they can at least be assured that their principal has the necessary drive, positive energy, and experience to establish a new learning culture. The theme for this year says it all – “Invent your future today.”