By Rod Amner
GADRA Education is “past ready and steady” – it is set to go.
This is according to treasurer Margie Keeton, who reported GADRA Education’s highest-ever income levels in 2022 – over R16-million – to a large and appreciative group of educationalists, parents, and students gathered for the 2023 AGM on the evening of Tuesday, 23 May. Expenditure was kept under R10-million.
Keeton showed that GADRA Education’s balance sheet – the surplus of assets over liabilities – had been on a “robust and resilient” upward trajectory, from under R500 000 in 2013 to over R37-million in 2022.
“We have the petrol in the tank – we are just waiting to turn on the engine,” Keeton said. “We are ready to spend in a much bigger way in the coming years.”
“The organisation managed to grow its long-term investments and sustainability fund and achieved a clean audit for the eleventh successive year,” Keeton reported.
GADRA Matric School grows
Long-standing GADRA Education chairperson Professor Ken Ngcoza reported that Matric School (GMS) produced another set of outstanding results in 2022, and the GMS’s 265-strong 2023 class is the largest in its 29-year-old history.
Since 2015, GMS has been Rhodes University’s biggest feeder school. Over 50 GADRA alumni graduated from Rhodes University in April 2023, and this year there are 80 GMS alums registered as full-time 1st Year students at Rhodes University.
The Whistle Stop School
Meanwhile, just 45 minutes a day in GADRA’s Whistle Stop School (WSS) is helping local primary school learners beat South Africa’s alarming literacy statistics.
The WSS is an early-grade literacy and research programme launched in partnership with St Mary’s Primary School in 2017. About 12 learners in grades 2 to 4 are pulled out of class for 45 minutes daily for sessions with specialised teachers.
Five years after partnering with St Mary’s, more than 75% of each grade 4 class can read for meaning, well above the 19% average in this year’s 2030 Reading Report.
Vision for Makhanda as an educational centre of excellence
While Makhanda is already the best-performing education district in the Eastern Cape, Ngcoza said the vision for 2023-2027 was to transform the city into the best-performing education centre in the country.
Keeton commended the contribution of parent fees to 2022 income – almost R2-million –the highest ever received. Keeton said the growth of fee income was partly because of the development of the GADRA Matric School but also because of the value placed on the GMS by parents.
All three GADRA Education Executive Board office bearers were unanimously re-elected to their positions. Chairperson is Prof Ken Ngcoza, the treasurer is Margie Keeton, and the administrator is GADRA Education manager Dr Ashley Westaway.
Rhodes University was represented at the AGM by Vice Chancellor Prof Sizwe Mabizela, Education Dean Prof Eureta Rosenberg, Humanities Dean Prof Enocent Msindo, Community Engagement Director Di Hornby and several other academics.
