No stopping now for Bay’s poorer-performers

Good, better, best.

This is the approach being taken by the Bay’s poorest-performing schools in 2017, which managed to haul themselves out of the 50 worst-performing list in 2018.

Thamsanqa Senior Secondary School in Kwazakhele as well as Thanduxolo Senior Secondary School in Kwanobuhle improved their matric pass rates by a momentous 32.1 and 39.2 percentage points.

This earned them overall pass rates for 2018 of 36.4% and 54.6% respectively.

In 2017, Thamsanqa placed second on the list, with a dismal pass percentage of 4.3%, while Thanduxolo Senior Secondary School placed 18th with a pass rate of 15.4%.

The only other Bay school on the 2017 list was Phakamisa Senior Secondary School in Zwide, which placed 46th with a pass rate of 23.7%.

However, the Bay class of 2018 pencilled in a new era for the region, claiming the title of the province’s best teaching district with an overall pass percentage of 76.1% in 2018, up from 72.6% the year before.

And it further erased any trace of a Bay school on the 2018 worst-performers list, after Phakamisa also managed to increase its pass rate by 18.9 percentage points to 42.6%.

This is a feat which Thamsanqa principal Justice Tutu, Thanduxolo principal Andile Mbengashe and Bay district director Ernest Gorgonzola are certain will continue.

Mbengashe said he was proud of the achievement.

“My teachers and I have worked very hard. It’s very remarkable. We channel the learners to the correct subject choices and separate the learners who have passed from those who have progressed.

“We also had a lot of extra classes and evening classes and we made it a point to complete the syllabus in time so we could do revision. The basic thing is to complete the syllabus in very good time.”

“The department [of education] wants us to be 70% and above and that’s what we’re aiming for this year.”

Tutu initiated a turnaround strategy for the school’s 29 matrics at the end of August, moving them to the Humewood military base to enable them to prepare for exams away from criminal elements in the Kwazakhele area.

He had previously said he held one-on-one sessions with each matric pupil to establish how they could help them.

On Friday, Gorgonzola said he expected pass rates in Bay township schools to surge in 2019 through an expanded extra classes programme.

Department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said all of the poorer-performing schools in the district had been allocated budgets to host camps and extra classes.

“We had sessions with schools telling them to include parents in the progress of pupils. We got schools to work together to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses and of course the extra classes, hence we have these results.”

Mtima said officials from all 12 districts would meet on Monday to analyse the results and compile a plan to improve them in 2019, while continuing with some of the tactics which were successful in 2018.

In 2017, Isivivane Senior Secondary School and Bhongolethu Senior Secondary drew for first on the worst-performers list with a 0% pass rate.

Both managed to improve their stats by 27.3 and 10 percentage points respectively, but both remain on the worst-performers list.

Acting education MEC Mlungisi Mvoko was pleased to announce at the Top Achievers Awards in East London on Friday that for the first time since the introduction of the NSC examinations 10 years ago, not a single school in the province had received 0%.

Phakamisa Senior Secondary School could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

There can be a degree of celebration but also an equal amount of introspection at the performance of the Eastern Cape’s matric class of 2018. Celebration because of the province managing to achieve a 70.6% pass rate – a significant 5.6 percentage-point increase on 2017’s 65% result and in itself a huge moralebooster at having broken through that psychological 70% barrier. Not quite the 80% goal education officials optimistically hanker for, but nevertheless a sure indication that the target does not represent mission impossible.

Introspection, on the other hand, because the number of pupils writing the matric exam continues to drop – by almost 11,000 over a two-year period.

Provincial education superintendent-general Themba Kojana says the department cannot be held solely responsible for the drop-outs. True, a pupil’s time in the classroom is limited to several hours a day and there can be all manner of outside influences that might negatively affect school attendance.

But Kojana must also appreciate that his and his colleagues’ job is that of education – and such a substantial drop in the number of matriculants writing exams needs to be urgently addressed.

That is something which has to be taken up through interventions which involve parents, outside organisations dealing with societal ills, and the community at large.

Kojana has acknowledged this and his department must now help set those wheels in motion.

But let’s not forget the good news. There is no doubt the commitment of a large proportion of dedicated teachers and an ever-expanding extra class programme is paying off – and that is an uplifting advancement after years of gloomy matric outcomes.

There is still a long road ahead for the betterment of education in the Eastern Cape and we can only urge all teachers, principals, officials and the pupils themselves who are putting in that extra, admirable effort, to keep at it. You are making a tremendous difference to a future generation.