Keep pupils at school for all 197 days

ANGI Jones hit the nail on the head with her letter on the Eastern Cape education department (“Same plan will give the same results”, January 18). Her frustrations, like those of many others who have tried to make a contribution at an Eastern Cape education department office, are evident.

She refers to the five binding restraints which emanated from a study by Prof Servaas van den Berg and a top class team of academics and economists. This study was instigated and supported by the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD), a partnership between the Presidency, South Africa and the European Union.

The five restraints form the core of what is wrong with education in the country and more so in the Eastern Cape than anywhere else. Nothing could be more official and yet the premier does not seem to know a thing about it as his plans for the future ignore these restraints.

His MEC is probably just as ignorant. You cannot expect anything else from a man who, as reported in the Weekend Post, applauded himself for his contribution to the 2.5% increase in the senior certificate pass mark for the province.

He shows complete ignorance about the whole senior certificate process.

Jones lists the five restraints, one of which is wasted learning time and insufficient opportunity to learn. The change will only come when all pupils are at school for the full 197 days of the school calendar and all teachers for 201.

This will be easier once the department stops imposing common examinations on schools, which last about a week longer than examinations specific to a school, particularly the Grade 11 examinations that start at about the same time as the senior certificate examinations. This results in pupils being at home for many days when they are not writing.

This system of common examinations is part of the same old procedure that has not worked in the past.

In the Western Cape, no school may start examinations before June 14 or November 13 (November 20 for Grades 4 to 6). Senior certificate marking may only start after the last school day for pupils.

Visits by Eastern Cape departmental officials to schools for promotion purposes are taking place far too early. The convenience of the officials is paramount and not that of the pupils.

Visits to schools can be done much later, as is being done in other provinces and has been done in the past.

A large number of pupils in the province miss at least 20 days of school a year because of bad planning by the department. Over 10 years, this means that our pupils obtain nine years of schooling!

Nobody, from the premier down through the ranks of the provincial education department, has the courage to lay down the law as it is done in the Western Cape. The Western Cape will continue to be top or second in the country when senior certificate results come out and the Eastern Cape will continue to be stone last.

Lionel Heath, former principal and Eastern Cape education department official, Port Elizabeth