It is that time of the year again; it is amazing how time flies. It seems like yesterday when as a department we started the year with a bang and renewed vigour and resolve to take this department to another level.
When this year started, our main aim was to ensure that we don’t only pay lip-service to our declaration that classroom is a centre piece of everything we do. Our hard work and determination was therefore primarily focused on improving the quality of education given to the people of KwaZulu-Natal.
One of our major exercises when this year begun, was to ensure that we finalise the restructuring process which started in 2010. We are glad to say that this process has been finalised seamlessly and the current structure and personnel of the department are geared towards strengthening the state of our classrooms.
As we speak today, there is not a single district that is without a District Manager. This was important to us because we are mindful of the fact that education takes place in the districts and if we are to get anything right, we needed to attend to the question of management in all our 12 districts.
Our six fundamental challenges that we face as the department meant that we do something drastic to ensure that we make a breakthrough regarding the provision of quality education in the province. To this end, we have just launched a very exciting programme called the "Transformation of the Schooling System in KwaZulu-Natal".
We have adopted this programme after extensive consultation with all our stakeholders at various levels. This programme of the Transformation of the Schooling System has in it six (6) pillars of change, i.e.
- eliminating inequality
- creating schools as Centres of Excellence
- streamlining schools into Primary and Secondary Phases
- renaming of Schools
- consolidating small, non-viable and Section 14 schools and
- optimal utilisation of resources.
It is our hope that this programme is going to take the provision of quality education to unparalleled heights and we are aware that without support from all our staff and stakeholders, we can achieve very little.
We are now in a critical process where we are marking scripts for our National Senior Certificate class of 2012. Given the work that we have put in since the beginning of the year, we are confident to achieve much higher than we did the previous year.
We therefore want to take this opportunity and convey our gratitude to all our officials (both office and school based) for their hard work and commitment to the cause of ensuring a well dedicated, skilled and highly developed citizenry.
Now it is that jolly season where we take time off and enjoy a well-deserved rest with our loved ones. I want to wish you all of the best during this festive season. May you all have a blessed Christmas and a very prosperous New Year. We want to see you all next year revitalised and with a renewed resolve to serve the people of KwaZulu-Natal.
Happy festive season!
