By ROD AMNER
At the start of the 2023 school year, Khutliso Daniels Secondary School’s dynamic principal, Radio Mcuba, made a pact with his 88 matrics.
He bought them a giant cake which was divided into 88 slices.
He told each learner they constituted 1.18 per cent of the matric cohort. If they ate the cake, “terms and conditions apply”.
“I am investing in you,” Mcube said.
“I asked them, ‘How does the cake taste?’.”
“‘It tastes so nice,’ they said. I said, ‘OK, you can only finish the cake if you give me back that 1.18 per cent’.”
“I told them, ‘When you give it back, it will taste twice as sweet. You, your parents and your sibling will taste that sweetness’.”
They all ate the cake.
Khutliso Daniels achieved an 89 per cent pass rate in the 2022 exams – 32 of the 36 learners passed, 15 with Bachelor passes.
Parents and learners are voting with their feet. There were 408 applicants for places in Grade 8. But for a lack of classrooms and teachers, they could only accommodate 150.
The 2023 matric class has more than doubled in size. Many of them will pay back the cake. Mcube hopes all of them will.
But, right now, many of them have nowhere to sit.
“It’s a crisis,” says Ncube. “Some parents are asking me if they can bring chairs.”
“For the past two years. I don’t know how many requests I have made to the Department of Education.”
Last year, the Eastern Cape Portfolio Committee on Education visited the school. “We told them we needed chairs and a classroom. They made a recommendation to the department, but officials have never followed it up.”
Ncube used his initiative to procure two prefab structures from the Department of Public Works, which were combined to form a new classroom.
The school has forged several fruitful partnerships with civil society initiatives. Rotary Clubs of Grahamstown and Grahamstown Sunset upgraded sanitation and kitchen upgrades at the school, part of a R6-million project at seven local schools. Standard Bank has donated water tanks and 135 pairs of school shoes.
Department fails to fill vacant posts
The school has two unfilled teaching posts.
A Grade 11 and 12 English teacher (“who always gets 100 per cent pass rate”) retired at the end of last year. Another was a teacher who left her HOD post.
“We put that to the portfolio committee last year. And now the Department is saying they were not informed,” Ncube said.
“I have two teachers who are volunteers who fit like a glove. One of them taught history in place of an incapacitated teacher. Guess the percentage my volunteer teacher got in history? 100%.
“To think they would ignore that teacher and not absorb them among the staff members.”
The Department has now decreed a new moratorium on new appointments while they complete the process of redeploying teachers. But that will only be completed by the end of Term 1—cold comfort for a school that is on a solid, upward trajectory.
“We started the year, and those learners and classes have no teacher – it’s crazy. Our two posts have got nothing to do with redeployment. They are vacant posts!”
At a temporary arrangement, a Khutliso Grade 9 and 10 English teacher has been drafted to teach the matrics.
“And now the lower grades are suffering. It’s not a solution,” Ncube says. “They are saving money at our expense.”
A special, collaborative effort to achieve success through the pandemic
In 2020, Khutliso joined the Makhanda schools partnership and started receiving support from student volunteers from the Rhodes University Community Engagement division and other local roleplayers.
“I really take my hat off to Di Hornby (RUCE director) and Dr Ashley Westaway, a friend of mine. Especially during the Covid-19 lockdown.
“Remember, this matric group was in Grade 10 during the heat of the pandemic. Schools opened and closed; learners were lazy to go to school. When schools opened, Grade 12s were prioritised, followed by Grade 11s. Grade 10s fell in the cracks.
“Sometimes you need to have farsighted spectacles to correct that.”
The teachers sat down and made a plan. Grade 10s were included in extra lessons. “I said, ‘Our school is on a positive trajectory, but let’s watch out for the one group that could make us take a dive’.”
Ncube says it is essential for a manager to feel the pulse of the school. On Friday afternoons, he has an open talk with Grade 12s.
“I ask, ‘Do you have any problem? Is there anything that you feel impedes teaching and learning?'”
At the same time, parents are stepping up. Meetings enjoy 99 per cent attendance. “We discuss where we stand compared to other schools. We ask them to put the programme up on the walls of their homes.
“The parent does not have to be literate. But they must have a picture of what the school is saying. So the parent can ask, ‘Where have you been going – when are you going to sit down and work?'”
How can you help?
Victoria Girls principal Warren Schmidt donated 45 chairs to Khutliso last year, and some parents are asking if they can help.
The school would welcome donations of any chairs that would be durable. You can deliver them to the school directly.
Or contact Grocott’s Mail at 0761538445, and we will help with transport.
