Makhanda’s pupils reaping the benefits

The Makhanda Education Summit held at Rhodes University recently has resolved to build on the tremendous success already achieved in reshaping the city’s educational terrain.

The summit marked a pivotal moment in the city’s commitment to advance education for local youth.

Delegates from the Early Childhood Development (ECD), primary, and secondary school sectors convened to build upon the remarkable success achieved in elevating the quality of education and access to resources within Makhanda, and find partnership-driven solutions to the challenges that still exist.

Key achievements

Efforts to turn the tide of education began in 2013, when Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) was declared the 10th worst-performing education district in the country.

Through targeted intervention programmes, under the visionary leadership of Rhodes vice-chancellor Prof Sizwe Mabizela, many milestones have been achieved, among them:

A literacy assessment conducted by Gadra Education and Rhodes University’s department of primary and early childhood education in 2023, revealed that the literacy comprehension rates of the city’s Grade 4 pupils were more than double those of pupils in the rest of SA, as measured by the 2021 Pirls study.

As of 2023, 40% of Grade 4 pupils in Makhanda could read for meaning, compared to 19% nationally. The improving literacy levels have seen the city’s dropout rate among pupils plummet by about 20 perentage points over the past three years.

The matric pass rate in Makhanda has jumped from about 60% ten years ago to 80% in 2023.

The quality of Bachelor passes is rising, resulting in a tenfold increase in the number of disadvantaged local youth gaining access to Rhodes University as full-time students.

This has been made possible through the impactful and collaborative work of Rhodes University, a wide range of literacy organisations, teachers, students, NGOs, and education activists.

From 2020 to 2022, the retention rate of pupils in Makhanda’s public schools improved from 45% to 65%, reflecting a surge in literacy across the education system, encompassing primary and secondary schools.

Summit highlights

Delegates representing the different phases of education put forward ideas and solutions to the challenges inhibiting further progress in education.

The main themes centred around the need for nutritional and health programmes at schools and more access to early childhood development centres for young children.

There were also calls for parents to be more actively involved in the lives of their children, including assisting them with reading and homework.

However, delegates also stressed the need to consider the socio-economic conditions affecting families in Makhanda, and how this may impact parents’ ability to help their children.

For example, parents often work long hours, some have not had the privilege of education themselves, while in other cases, children are being cared for by their elderly grandparents.

These circumstances necessitated the need for wellcrafted support programmes for pupils.

Teachers also stressed the need for programmes supporting their career development and requested access to more psycho-social support.

Department of Education deputy director general: curriculum policy, support and monitoring, Dr Barney Mthembu, who was one of the keynote speakers at the summit, said the department was working on introducing a threestream model to prepare pupils for the workplace after they had completed matric.

He told delegates that the country’s curriculum needed to be strengthened and critiqued.

Mthembu said while the curriculum taught pupils about international history, many did not know the history of their very own revolution.

He said schools needed to move towards language competence, adding that all schools should have a period set aside for reading.

He added that the Covid-19 pandemic had a detrimental effect on pupils who had to push through their exams despite missing critical lessons.

He applauded the groundbreaking achievements made in Makhanda in improving access to education in the city.

Mthembu said there were still many questions that needed to be asked, including whether the education system was adequately preparing children for the job market.

“We are bleeding with unemployment. The majority of matriculants are not going to find work,” he said.

“We are discussing a threestream model with several stakeholders.

“We are restructuring the country’s schooling system.

“It can’t be that the country focuses more on the academic stream. We need a vocational stream, and we need an occupational stream.

“We need to provide diverse educational opportunities that cater for individual strengths.”

Dr Lise Westaway, from the university’s faculty of education, said an area of concern was that the teaching of reading to children stopped at the end of Grade 3.

Delegates agreed these lessons should continue into higher grades to ensure pupils were able to read with meaning, which would help them better understand the content being taught to them.

Delegates also highlighted that the quality of education was being impacted by the lack of access to basic services.

Makhanda is experiencing water shortages, which often forces schools to close early.

Pupils health was also compromised due to this crisis.

Educators called on the municipality to do more to improve access to water, and to improve the city’s roads, riddled with potholes.