Members of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature will be deployed throughout the province this week as part of the institution's Schools Functionality Monitoring Programme.
The Schools Functionality Monitoring Programme is an annual exercise of the KZN Legislature where MPLs visit various schools before the beginning of the academic year. These visits are conducted as part of the institution's mandate to exercise oversight over the executive.
"During these visits, Members check a number of things such as availability of teachers, whether teaching and learning starts on the first day of schooling, delivery of stationery, the state of the school infrastructure," said Legislature Speaker Honourable Lydia Johnson.
MPLs will be accompanied by officials from the legislature who will be taking notes and a comprehensive report of the state of schools throughout the province will be compiled and presented to the Education MEC.
This report will be debated in the legislature assembly but Education MEC will also be requested to make immediate interventions where MPLs discovered serious challenges that could compromise education in those schools.
"We are not only focusing on schools that performed poorly. We are also visiting those who did very well because we need to know what it is that they do that remains elusive to those schools that are not doing well," said Johnson.
Members will start the Schools Functionality Monitoring Programme on Wednesday (21 January) and end on Friday (23 January).
The last day has been set down for stakeholder meetings in which Members will be interacting with the various stakeholders in the education sector about their findings during the visits that would take place on Wednesday and Thursday.
Members of the media are invited to join the MPLs in these visits. The list of schools and schedule are attached for ease of reference.
For more information please contact:
Wonder Hlongwa
Cell: 082 908 3532
