North West Legislature finds serious challenges in various schools in the Province

The North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Education, Sports Arts and Culture has found that there are still a lot of challenges facing North West learners during its first leg of school visits that are taking place around the province until Friday, 27 January 2012.

Amongst the challenges found, one major problem is in the Post Provisioning Model (PPM) that the Department of Education uses to allocate teachers at schools.

Post Provisioning Model is used as a matter of routine to work out the annual post establishments of schools, based on their requirements and the school staffing policy of the government. The model includes a complex formula for working out the post establishments of each school as fairly and as equitably as possible, using two key criteria, namely, the number of learners at each school, and the particular needs of learners at each school.

During a visit to Mampadi High School in Mathibestad, a school that underperformed in the 2011 matric results, the Committee found two more high schools, Sekitla and Mogatlampe High Schools housed in the same building.

According to one of the principal of the schools, Mr Malekana, the schools, have been housed in the same building since April 2010 because of shortage of teachers and resources.

“Our enrolment in Mogatlampe High School was too low, allowing us to get only five teachers and that is not enough for all subjects that the school is teaching.

“We also had a shortage of resources, so the best way was to bring the schools together under one roof so resources, including teachers , can be shared amongst the three schools”, said Mr. Malekana.

During the 2010 matric results, Sekitla High School had obtained 53% but in 2011 the school obtained 89%, Mampadi had obtained 47% in 2010 but then it went down to 42% in 2011 while Mogatlampe obtained 42% in 2010 and went up to 55% in 2011.

Asked why the other schools are performing badly while Sekitla has performed well, Mr Malekana said lack of discipline among the learners and their age contributed to this.

“We had identified six learners who own RDP houses and heading their own families but were still learners at the school. Discipline is a major problem at the school, said Mr Malekana.

Principal of Mafanele High School in Klipgat, Mr Tlholoe, also complained about PPM as one of the major challenges they have at the school. The school according to PPM qualifies for eleven teachers but they already have 18 teachers. The school did not have a Mathematics and Physical Science teacher since October 2010, when their only maths teacher died.

“We could not get a replacement for our maths and science teacher because our number was still higher than the PPM number allocated to the school.

“The department only sent us a teacher in August 2011 when our learners were threatening to strike. The school obtained 47, 1% for matric this year with maths sitting at 13%.” Mr Tlholoe said even though the department assisted them with the maths and science teacher, it was a little too late as he only had two months to teach a syllabus for the whole year.

Member of the Committee, Hon. Auchalie Mothupi, said the department needs to review its PPM policy since there is a lot of unhappiness amongst the teachers on the policy.

“The department needs to conduct a skills audit of its own workforce so they can make necessary placements. It should also make a concerted effort to recruit more maths and science educators.

The process of merging the three schools should be fast tracked so that there is one school with one uniform and one administration at Mampadi High School.

The department should also renovate all dilapidated school infrastructure in the province,” said Hon Mothupi.

Hon Mothupi also said the Committee will compile a report of all its findings in all schools visited in the province and forward it to the Department of Education with their recommendations.

Schools still to be visited;

Members of the media are invited to attend. Please contact Namhla on 079 527 0628 to RSVP.

Enquiries:
Namhla Luhabe
Cell: 079 5270628
E-mail: namhla@nwpl.org.za