The Deputy Minister of Tourism Tokozile Xasa will take time this coming week to visit schools in Berlin, East London in the Buffalo City Municipality. The visits are in line with a Cabinet commitment to visits schools and that has seen the Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe visiting schools in some part of the Eastern Cape province during the first week of schooling. Ministers and Deputy Ministers are also expected to visit the schools to among others check on the preparedness of schools since the new year of school started.
The Deputy Minister, accompanied by some of the local political and community leaders, will use this leg of her visits to engage with the stakeholders. They will to look at the challenges facing schools in the area and take the time to thank the educators and management of schools that have improved their matric results in 2011 and motivate those who didn’t perform well to roll-up their sleeves to improve on whatever went wrong last year. Some of the schools in the district have not performed as well as it was expected and the visit will afford the Deputy Minister to evaluate the situation and communicate her observations to her colleagues in the Cabinet.
The visits at the beginning of the every year and towards the end of the year including impromptu visits during the year forms part of the interventions that have seen schools in the area improve their matric and overall results in the past three years. Although there are some schools that are still lagging behind while some the performance of some has dropped during the same period, the Deputy Minister believes the visits will go a long way towards reigniting confidence and encouraging the schools to do better this year. Thembalesizwe Senior Secondary School is one of the schools in the Berlin area that has improved their matric results after they achieved a 100% pass rate last year from a 66.7% pass in 2010.
Members of the community and the media are invited as follows:
Venue: Berlin, East London, Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (the entourage will converge near Berlin Community before they depart for the schools)
Date: Tuesday, 24 to Friday, 27 January 2012
Time: 07h30
For more information contact:
Balosang Sanki Lerefolo: Media Liaison Officer: Deputy Minister of Tourism
Cell: (+27) 082 836 8703
E-mail: slerefolo@tourism.gov.za / balosang@gmail.com
