Hoërskool Bastion and Madiba Comprehensive High School, who will now also be known as the MadiBas, were announced as twinned schools on 28 August, at the official launch of the Twinning of Schools.
After a long process of trying to combine Hoërskool Bastion, the first Afrikaans school to be twinned, and Madiba Comprehensive High School since July 2018, the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) and Youth Development held the official twinning announcement ceremony at Hoërskool Bastion.
Gert Koekemoer, the school principal, assured parents and learners that this does not mean the school’s name will change, “Each school will retain their identity and name. We are entering into a partnership, where we will be working together and sharing resources to ensure quality education for all. We will still be known as Hoërskool Bastion.”
During the pilot phase of twinning schools, six schools – Alexandra Secondary and Sandown High Schools, Cultura Secondary and Zithobeni Secondary Schools, Reiger Park Secondary and Sunward Park High School – were the first schools to be combined. The GDE stated that these twinned schools have demonstrated that through twinning, resources can be shared between schools, and learners and educators can participate in shared teaching and learning activities, including social cohesion, teaching expertise in the subject content, and achieving improved learner performance.
“We are proud of the outcomes witnessed from the first phase of the twinning programme and grateful for the support received from the four pairs of schools, which opted for Section 17GB status during the pilot phase,” said MEC Panyaza Lesufi.
The Department has also developed an implementation plan to support schools during and after twinning, to ensure achievement of potential benefits such as cultural exchange as learners integrate, improved cultural awareness, sharing of resources and resultant efficiency gains, and embedding social responsibility.
For most, it is still very unclear what the twinning of two schools actually means. The Record approached the Head of the Department of Education, Mr Edward Mosuwe, to shed some light on the subject.
“We did have some challenges during the twinning process. One of them was the lack of understanding of what we are seeking to achieve. We are looking to pair schools that are located close to each other so that they can share the resources which their twin school lacks. The beauty of today is that the SGBs of the two schools voluntarily got together, because they saw the value of the programme. The process of twinning schools is already regulated in terms of section 17 of the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996. We want the schools to get together voluntarily, and want this twinning, and will not force it on them. The future that we are all looking for is to make sure that every child in our country gets the best opportunities and also feels the value of what the Gauteng Department of Education offers,” he explained.
“It is important to note that this programme offers opportunities to School Governing Bodies to re-think the opportunities for change embedded in the twinning process, as the future is now to increase private partnership investment to the benefit of our schools,” Lesufi concluded.
