MEC on inspection drive
KZN MEC for Education, Kwazi Mshengu has vowed to intervene in reducing the number of low performing schools in the province.
Mshengu, who visited King Cetshwayo District on Tuesday, said he was planning to deploy subject advisers at all the schools that perform below par, to enhance the level of teaching and learning.
‘These schools will get a regular visits by circuit inspectors to see how they are being managed.
‘We have discovered that in some cases, teachers are not properly equipped to teach certain subjects.
‘We are also training School Governing Bodies to bring parents closer to the education of their children and assist them with school work,’ he said.
He engaged with local school principals who converged at Empangeni High School, to monitor the progress of the Academic Outreach Programme, aimed at improving the quality of education.
‘Last week we embarked on a programme of visiting all the 12 districts to listen to the challenges faced by teachers in various schools, to have a better understanding on the nature of the challenges we have.
‘So far, the report we have received from this district, indicates that we are still on course.
‘We want to implement accountability and consequent management systems to totally eliminate National Senior Certificate ‘zero percent schools’ in KZN. ‘The success of the Academic Improvement Plan depends on the collaborative effort between schools, circuits and districts who need to play their roles in all activities,’ he said. Mshengu added that high impact school monitoring and support, improvement of teacher quality and output, promotion of the culture of reading with comprehension, compliance and consequence management, accountability as an organisational culture, stakeholder consultation, engagement and management have been identified as guiders of the outreach programme.