Bhisho education officials set to visit worst and best performing schools

THE province’s worst and best performing schools in the 2017 National Senior Certificate exams will be paid a visit by members of the Bhisho legislature over the next two weeks.

MPLs who sit on the education portfolio committee will be visiting schools in Amathole – the worst performing district in the province – and schools in Nelson Mandela Bay, which was flagged as the best performing district.

Amathole district came up with a pass rate of less than 60%, while Nelson Mandela came out tops with 72.6%, followed by Sarah Baartman at 71.8% and O R Tambo Inland at 69.3%.

The province showed an overall improvement of 5.7 percentage points with 65% in the 2017 matric exams from 59.3% in 2016.

The school visits form part of committee’s annual programme in January when schools reopen. Committee members are dispatched to schools across the province to receive first-hand information on the challenges encountered and further validate the information received from officials from the department of education.

The visits will take place between Wednesday when schools open until January 26.

Acting general manager in the office of the secretary of the legislature, Nombulelo Mosana, said the committee would identify challenges experienced by the schools and make recommendations.

“The recommendations made will tabled and adopted to House Resolutions by the House in March. For the 2018 programme, the teams of members will again visit the schools that were visited during the 2017 programme to assess the extent of the implementation of House Resolutions and impact,” said Mosana.

Mosana said the committee, which consists of eight groups, will be visiting best performing schools in each district to learn best practices that can be emulated by other schools.

The chairman of the committee, Fundile Gade, said they were hoping to find a teacher in front of all pupils, with textbooks delivered.

“We do not expect any late admission problems. If that happens, that means that there is crisis. Also, we expect the department to have appointed teachers following the bulletins that were advertised late last year,” said Gade.

During last year’s visit, the committee identified shortfalls in the supply of textbooks and other learner support material.

The members also established that the shortage of critical subject teachers, such as mathematics and physical science, affected the Grade 12 results.

Following the visits last year, the education department was given six months to implement the resolutions it had taken and after a re-visit in July, the committee reported some improvement.