Educate SA to host awareness campaign

Educate South Africa (SA) within the West Rand is set to host a school stability campaign at the Westonaria Banquet Hall at the Westonaria municipal building on 6 March.

This was announced by CEO and Founder of the body, Jackie Shabangu, who says that this is in line with their mandate of wanting to empower pupils and teachers alike as well as get rid of destructive elements in schools wthat hamper the learning process.

According to him, Educate SA was established during September 2013 and strives to develop schools in rural and poverty-stricken areas.

They will be expanding to other provinces in the near future.

“We often find that there is instability in schools and that is why Educate SA exists.

“Issues of sexual relations between teachers and pupils, gangsterism, ineffectiveness of school governing bodies and mismanagement of funds among other things are what’s worrying especially in public schools.

“We want to intervene and assist the Department of Education in fighting some of the problematic issues and ensure that the learning environment is conducive to teaching at all times.

“We are doing this because not only are we passionate about education but because we understand the dynamics in schools as we ourselves were at school not so long ago,” says Shabangu.

He adds that while they have many plans in the pipeline, their main focus currently is on the stability campaign where they will address issues of pupils and teachers being late and bunking classes and other pertinent issues that contribute to the disruption of learning in schools.

“Apart from this, we also are planning to promote transparency in school governing bodies (SGB) throughout all schools so everyone including parents can have a sense of what is going on in the schools.

“We also want to strengthen the existing relationships between parents, pupils and teachers.