Inclusive Centres of Learning, Care and Support
17 August 2007
Schools are no longer only institutions of teaching and learning, it also
has to provide care and support for children and teachers, as well as
addressing all forms of barriers to learning and development.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education has adopted a strategy that will
turn schools into Inclusive Centres of Learning, Care and Support. This will
not only achieve the goals of the department's HIV and AIDS and Care and
support programmes (through funding of the Royal Netherlands Embassy and
administrative management by the Media in Education Trust) but will also
address the need to remove barriers to teaching and learning as stated in
Education White Paper Six (2001).
Such barriers that prevent effective teaching and learning include
inadequate facilities at schools, severe poverty, late enrolment, communication
difficulties, children living in the streets, those affected and infected with
HIV and Aids, insufficient support of educators, poor health, psycho-social
disturbances, etc.
The focus of the strategy is to build caring and supportive environments by
creating full service schools at nodal points. These Inclusive Centres of
Learning, Care and Support will in turn service clusters of schools and
communities around it.
On Tuesday, 21 August 2007, KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Ina Cronje will be
launching Muntuza Primary School as an Inclusive Centre of Learning, Care and
Support � the first of 48 schools that are in the process of becoming Inclusive
Centres of Learning, Care and Support.
The need to transform Muntuza Primary School emanates from the fact that the
school is situated in the poverty stricken Wembezi Township (Estcourt) where a
number of factors hinder the learning and development of our children. These
factors include a high unemployment rate among parents, the lack of birth
certificates prevent most learners to access the social grants for which they
qualify, parents themselves don't have identity documents and a high mortality
rate among parents, resulting in most learners being orphans living with
elderly and relatives and thus vulnerable to different forms of abuse.
The Office of the Premier was requested by the school to support the
transformation of the school into an Inclusive Centre of Learning, Care and
Support. As a result various government departments, the municipality and NGOs
will be providing a range of services at Muntuza.
These services include:
* the conversion of a classroom into a health and wellness centre, where
psycho-social support (counselling, accessing of social grants, issuing of
birth certificates, support for the abused) will be facilitated
* registration as Muntuza as a health promotion school
* establishment of sustainable food gardens at the school
* intensifying the life skills education programme
* community mobilisation for the involvement in and support for Muntuza
* financial support and provision of relevant resources
* provision of on site training on specific skills, e.g. gardening and
handwork.
Date of launch: 21 August 2007
Time: 09h00
Venue: Wembezi stadium, Wembezi, Estcourt
Contact:
Christi Naude
Tel: 033 355 2453
Fax: 033 342 0275
Cell: 083 262 8829
E-mail: christin@kznedu.kzntl.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Education, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial
Government
17 August 2007
