Education gets a boost thanks to partnership

LEARNERS, teachers and education officials in the Vhembe and Waterberg districts will soon begin to experience the benefits of the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) that was launched last July to speed up the pace of, and change in, the education system.

This was confirmed by education MEC Dikeledi Magadzi and NECT CEO Godwin Khoza, during a special briefing in Polokwane last week.

The NECT is a non-profit organisation that is built on a partnership among business, government, labour and civil society and is dedicated to improve the quality of basic education.

Even though the NECT is less than a year old, it has already attracted major funding from businesses and government and has merited special mentions by president Jacob Zuma in his state of the nation address and finance minister Pravin Gordhan in his budget speech.

According to Khosa, Limpopo contained two of the first eight districts due to receive assistance; Vhembe and Waterberg. “These districts have 1 464 schools, about 22 400 educators and 606 400 learners,” he said.

Preparatory work that has already been completed in both districts include:

• Research has been conducted by the NECT to produce an education profile for each district.

• A profiling report has been compiled for each district.

• Local stakeholders have nominated members of district steering committees (DSC) that will oversee the work that the NECT does in both Vhembe and Waterberg.

• Members of both DSCs have participated in an induction course that ensures they are in a position to undertake the responsibilities and play the important role that the NECT envisages.

• The NECT has appointed the consulting firm, Deloitte, to work closely with the district education offices, to produce a detailed three-year plan of action and budget to address the specific needs identified in the profiling reports.

Various partners have also been working under the NECT umbrella to address the most urgent problem in the two districts, a shortage of 7 040 desks in Vhembe and 3 347 desks in Waterberg.

“The NECT will focus on strengthening the district and circuit offices.

“It will focus on fast tracking improvements to district systems and training curriculum advisors who pay a critical role in helping teachers to do better”, said Khosa.

Magadzi said she was confident that teachers, principals and education officials would also benefit from the assistance of the NECT. “This will encourage them to increase their efforts,” she said.