Sizakele Netshilaphala, Acting Superintendent General (SG) for the Eastern Cape Department of Education says the province is in a crisis after receiving an average of 44 percent matric pass rate in the June exams this year.
Sizakele Netshilaphala, Acting Superintendent General (SG) for the Eastern Cape Department of Education says the province is in a crisis after receiving an average of 44 percent matric pass rate in the June exams this year.
Netshilaphala said this on Wednesday at the Settlers Monument during an interview with Grocott’s Mail after her meeting with school principals from across the province.
She described the situation as a bad one and said the province has opened centres to support matric learners. The team from the province was visiting all its clusters to check if the support centres were functioning well.
The acting SG said their purpose is to assist districts and schools with their countdown of activities towards the final exams.
“You see when they wrote their mid-year exams, our average as a province was at 44 percent and that is a crisis. So we have now opened 123 centres to support them.
“We are going around now and checking if the centres are working and if they are not working, what additional assistance do they need to make sure that they work. We have printed Mind the Gap study guides as well as exam packs for matric learners.
“I want to make sure that all of them have received the packs. If they have not received the packs they must make sure that they collect them. We have issued the study packs only to the schools that got less than 60 percent in June, which is the majority of our schools.
“But as we are going around, the proposal has been that lets give study packs to all other learners. The learners find these study guides very helpful,” said Netshilaphala.
She said that the department was looking at filling educators posts. Netshilaphala said for this year more than 2 000 educators posts have been advertised but not all of them have been filled.
She said what she has been asking districts directors as well as principals why the posts have not been filled.
“The reason I ask that question is because when you advertise a post at the head office, it comes to the district and the district has to make a master list that it will give it to schools, then the Schools Governing Bodies (SGB) must then interview and submit names to the district for appointment.
“So I want to know what is taking so long in that chain? Some of them (district directors and principals) are saying the head office is not appointing but I’m saying to them I've dedicated this function to the district directors to appoint educators.
"I have dedicated the function to appoint professional posts which is head of departments, principals and deputy principals to the Cluster Chief Director. This notion that the head office is delaying appointment, I don't know where it is coming from.
"It's been useful to tell them, listen this is the power that is lying within you. Please by end of this month finish appointing on these bulletins," said Netshilaphala.
The acting SG said they have looked at how they can help learners in the meantime since some teachers have not been appointed.
Netshilaphala said the important thing is about making sure Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM) are ordered and delivered on time.
Netshilaphala said she also shared with them the challenges that the department is facing. She said she needed them to also think on how to deal with the challenges. The acting SG said some of the projects the department has implemented are not projects that are loved.
Especially the project that dealt with inflated learner numbers. She said the department is going to take action against the people who are inflating learner numbers.
"Learner numbers in the education system equal money, it equals money that is transferred to school in terms of norms and standards which is at the moment for a public school is 1 177.
"It equals books that we buy for your school for learners that do not exist, it equals the teachers that we give to you school for learners that do not exist and it equals the extra classrooms that we think we need to build for your school when you don't have the learners but have just inflated the numbers.
"So it is a serious fraud if you inflate learner numbers and it is fraud that costs the system a lot of money," said Netshilaphala.
She said the session with the principals was a valuable information sharing session but it has been a valuable opportunity for her to tell them to behave properly.
Netshilaphala said now there is no way that the department would not take action against people who are misbehaving.
"This is not about us, its about education of our children. So we cannot allow people who are misbehaving. The meeting has also been a valuable interaction for us to say what is extra that we need to do for the countdown to final exams.
Now what remains is to do what we need to do and pray for better results."
