Education boss’s war on underperformance

THE days of the Eastern Cape province always coming bottom of the matric class are over.

Now school principals will be held accountable for poor results, with schools that achieve below 65% pass rate declared as underperforming.

This was announced by provincial education superintendent-general Themba Kojana during a visit to Mthatha yesterday, where he met with officials from the department of education’s O R Tambo inland district as well as school principals from across the district.

“The Eastern Cape will not again be number last,” Kojana said.

“We can no longer entertain under-performance.

“We are going to work hard and we have raised the bar now.”

He said they wanted to achieve the 70% target they had set as part of the province’s education transformation plan, and they had committed themselves to achieving this goal in three years.

Kojana, who took over the reins in 2016, has been crisscrossing the Eastern Cape learning more about the challenges facing different districts in the province and what support schools need to enhance their performance.

He said the department was implementing a slew of changes in a bid to turn school results around.

For starters, districts had already been reconfigured in a trim-down from 23 to 12.

“We hope we will have met with all principals and district officials before the end of June,” he said.

“We are communicating a new vision for the Eastern Cape province.”

Principals and their deputies were being trained on how to efficiently their schools.

“We have adopted three guiding principles to develop a high performance culture: strengthening communication at all levels, performance management, and ensuring that there is accountability.”

Teachers have been supplied with laptops loaded with curriculum trackers, and every school, teacher and pupil is profiled to ascertain their shortcomings and what support to give to them.

Earlier, the education director in the O R Tambo inland district, Nomthandazo Dyodo, told Kojana that there were 35 schools in her district which had underperformed.

She listed teacher shortages, sas well as inappropriate and mud schools, as some of the pressing challenges facing her district. — run