Jozini mayor promises to address skills shortage

Jozini mayor Mfananaye Mathe has urged parents, teachers, and members of the public to work together to make sure teaching and learning are not interrupted.

Mathe was addressing teachers and parents at the 2021 Matric Mayoral Excellence Awards held at Emachibini community hall on Thursday.

‘I also encourage our councillors to become involved in school activities, which would help ease the burden on school principals,’ he said.

‘We need to work together to make sure our schools are safe and conducive for teaching and learning. We need to address the issues of social ills in our local schools,’ he said.

Mathe awarded ten top learners with certificates and laptops.

‘We want to encourage learners to focus more on civil engineering, agriculture, tourism, and public administration and finance studies,’ he said.

‘We have designed a programme to adopt learners who will be doing these studies, and make sure we pay for them as of next year.

‘As the municipality, we will have an agreement with, and adopt, learners who want to enroll in these studies. We will pay for their studies until they complete their degrees and obtain their qualifications. ‘After that, we will hire them for a certain period.

‘Our main aim is to address skills scarcity in our area,’ he said.

Mathe congratulated those who passed matric and encouraged those who did not do well, to go back to school.

One of the top achievers, Asanda Jobe (17) from the KwaJobe area said hard work and dedication were the keys to her success.

‘I was doing Grade 12 at Esinethezekile Combined School.

‘I obtained seven Level 7s and 100% in accounting.

‘This year I will start studying towards a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

‘Our teachers were there for us at school; my belief was that the availability of teachers was not to spoon-feed us, but to assist us,’ she said.

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