The Eastern Cape province parents vote with their feet as to date 294 public schools have been unofficially closed since parents are moving about their children to various parts of the province in search of schools with good pass rate.
This was revealed by the education MEC Mandla Makupula during the schools rationalisation and re-alignment public hearing held at the Mount Frere education district on Monday this week.
These public hearings are part of the legislative requirement before the closure or merger of unfeasible schools provincially as required and stipulated by Section 12 (a) and Section 33 of the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996.
According to Makupula, primarily, major variables leading to the closure or merger of these schools include the decreasing learner numbers in schools and the migration patterns of parents searching for areas that would help address their economic needs.
“Just in Queenstown, we had to close down a school with four kids from the same family that was not viable as these kids were in different classes, but by law only one teacher is supposed to teach all of them. Remember in the South African context, that the learner is the key drive in education, as it determines the funding of schools, teacher number per school, infrastructure needs of a school and general resourcing of schools, therefore if learners are below the required numbers such makes it impossible to run the school”, said Makupula.
Makupula also highlighted that since the start of this rationalisation programme about 58 schools have now applied to be officially closed since there are no learners at all in them.
“As we are considering the closure of these 58 schools, the department is considering redeploying the teachers from those schools as teachers must be deployed to where there is a need. Additionally, conditions of service of the deployed teachers will be dealt with by the Provincial Education Labour Relations Council (PELRC). All those learners who have to travel to access a school will be allocated scholar transport to carry them to a nearby school”, explained Makupula.
The Mount Frere Education District Director Sonwabile Sobikela, welcomed the presentation by the MEC, but cautioned that his district is accepting the programme as mandated by the recent education summit held in February this year. “Resolution 46 of the recent education summit states, that the district must be used as a provincial pilot project for the rationalisation and re-alignment of schools. We want this programme to be effected in January next year, hence we will finish re-alignment and rationalisation on time for it to be implemented in 2013 in this district”, said Sobikela.
Presenting a schematic presentation to the packed hall, the Educational Management Information System (EMIS) provincial coordinator Ntsikelelo Ntwanambi who warned that the district needed to align appropriately as the current arrangement of ‘junior secondary schools’ was not in line with the 2010 Council of Education Minister’s resolution of having only two school prototypes, a primary and senior secondary school.
“About 567 700 learners from this district are attending junior secondary schools meaning they are attending grade eight and nine (8 & 9). Those schools need to be aligned correctly so that a school can either be a primary starting from Grade R – 7, or a senior secondary starting from Grade 8 – 12”, urged Ntwanambi.
Mount Frere education district outlook:
The Mount Frere education district has:
- 256 School
- 26 of the 256 schools are senior secondary schools;
- 224 of these 256 schools are Senoir primary schools;
- Out of the 256 schools are 6 independent schools;
- The district has 10 circuits
District pass rate over the past four years:
- In 2008 the district obtained 39.5% pass rate;
- In 2009 the district obtained 45.8% pass rate;
- In 2010 the district obtained 53.3% pass rate; and
- In 2011 the district obtained 47.2% pass rate (with one school getting 3% pass rate)
Mount Frere education district top performing schools:
- Rhode SSS topped in the district with a whopping 85.1%;
- Nzululwazi SSS obtained 77.4% pass rate;
- Hulu SSS received 72.1% pass rate;
- Arthur Ngunga SSS got 70.8% pass rate; and
- Senyukele SSS obtained 68.2% pass rate
