In 2011, we saw the Gauteng matric pass rate increase by 2.5% to 81.1%. Part of the reason for this increase is the Secondary School Improvement Programme which provides extra classes on Saturdays and during school holidays for grades 10, 11 and 12. We will this Saturday launch the programme in Kagiso and we encourage learners to commit themselves to these classes and not emiss lessons.
We will continue with interventions for all the phases in the education system with a particular focus on the 1 228 underperforming schools. This year for the first time we are expanding our range of interventions in secondary schools to target the transition from primary to high school, the Intermediate (Grade 4-7) and Senior (Grade 8 and 9) Phase.
We have developed a catch-up programme for Grade 8s to ensure that learners are at the required level of development for English and Mathematics. This programme is infused into the normal teaching and learning for Grade 8 throughout the year. It includes a programme for class reading and group reading in English and daily 10 minute catch-up activities for mathematics.
The learner resources for the catch-up programme include personalised dictionaries, study skills, reading record cards and writing journals.
We are expanding our primary school language and literacy intervention to include numeracy. This means that we will have a seamless and integrated approach to the delivery and support for Literacy and Numeracy for all grades in primary school.
We are this year recruiting 460 coaches to support literacy and numeracy in primary schools. Last year we appointed 124 coaches for the foundation phase who made approximately 40 000 class visits, something unprecedented in South African education. Each coach is responsible for five or six schools.
The coaches support teachers in preparing for class, work with them in class to ensure they deliver lessons, and give them professional feedback. Coaches are trained on a monthly basis so that we establish practice standards for coaching and ensure consistency and predictability.
Last year, we appointed homework coaches to support our literacy and numeracy interventions in primary schools. We will this year during the April holidays provide training to the homework coaches. Our literacy and numeracy coaches as well as district officials will assist us to provide this training.
Teacher Development
A total of 5000 Foundation Phase teachers received the 24-hour Just-In-Time training as well as 6770 Intersen teachers. Just-In-Time training is training on core curriculum concepts that teachers need to teach in that term.
A total of 2075 maths and science teachers in grades 10, 11 and 12 received training. And we will conduct quarterly Just-In-Time training for Foundation Phase teachers as well as Intersen teachers in 2012.
Teachers undergo three weeks of intensive training in maths and science at higher education institutions. During this time about 400 relief teachers are deployed to schools. The relief teacher programme also assisted us with SSIP when we provided training to all educators in underperforming schools last year.
With regard to ICT Training, a total of 352 teachers received 63 hours of training each in MS Word, MS Excel and MS Access.
We have developed standard lesson plans with clear milestones on curriculum coverage and linked to the learner workbooks supplied by the National Department of Basic Education for Term 1. They cover languages and mathematics in the Foundation Phase as well as mathematics and English in grades 4 to 7. These lesson plans have been distributed to schools.
The lesson plans ensure that educators are teaching the same topic at the same time in all underperforming schools and this helps us to monitor that the curriculum is completed on time. It reduces the burden on educators to prepare lesson plans and frees them to spend more time with learners.
The department has produced 500 hours of standard lesson plans for the grades 8 and 9, as well as 300 hours of lesson plans for grades 10, 11 and 12.
The School Safety and Security Strategy
We have now deployed 4 636 patrollers to 1 602 schools using the criteria that the school is underperforming and high risk. All new alternative building material schools receive patrollers irrespective of risk profile.
We will in April train all patrollers in grade C and D security qualification through the SASETA. Some of those who have these qualifications will have an opportunity to upgrade.
Due to this patroller programme, we have reduced the number of burglaries during the festive season to 15. We had 47 burglaries in January 2011 compared to 6 in January 2012 in schools with Gauteng online laboratories.
By end of this week we will complete the verification of all patrollers' details to enable us to process their stipends regularly.
All districts have completed phase one of linking schools with their local police stations and have verified specific data to ensure that they have safety committees and plans of action in place.
The Grade R Implementation Strategy
We are steadily making progress to meet the target of 5 000 Grade R sites by 2014. We have 3 359 sites in Gauteng and we are conducting a full-scale verification and mapping of all early childhood development (ECD) sites. We currently have 107 000 learners attending ECD sites, nearly two-thirds of the 2014 target of 150 000.
We have registered 312 new sites for 2012. About 307 Grade R prefabricated classrooms have been delivered and are already occupied.
A total of 1 217 practitioners are currently attending training and a total of 500 practitioners have registered in November 2011 for Level 5 training. The negotiations between the Higher Education Institutions and the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance (MGSLG) to train practitioners on Level 6 NQF qualification are being finalised.
The Early Childhood Development Institute (ECDI) is in the process of finalising the curriculum for learners birth-to-four years old. MGLSG is currently training a total of 1 940 pre-Grade R practitioners across the province. The training sessions are monitored weekly.
School Readiness
We ran the School Readiness exercise for 2012 to ensure that schools started learning and teaching on the very first day. The challenge has been late registrations which resulted in over 15 000 learners seeking space in Gauteng in January and February. Our operation centres managed to address this challenge of placing learners and identified schools where we needed to deploy extra prefabricated classrooms.
There are 70 schools where there is overcrowding and we have established a task team to provide support to schools in terms of extra teachers, textbooks and stationery, extra classes, and furniture. Working with school principals, the team has resolved the challenges we faced in the south of Johannesburg. The team is currently addressing overcrowding in other areas including Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg.
Most of the overcrowding is linked to the 36 new schools we are opening this year. We have already opened 15 schools. A further 17 will be opened in March and another four in April.
The province has successfully delivered all material for the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS). The last material was delivered on 5 December 2011. Teachers received CAPS Orientation on 6-8 December, and on 12 December.
The National School Nutrition Programme
The Department continues to provide nutrition to a total of 1 004 458 of the poorest learners in the province. The Department has successfully extended the NSNP to all quintile 3 secondary schools in the province, reaching a total of 151 527 learners in these schools.
Scholar Transport
We are regularly monitoring bus routes to ensure that learners are safely transported and that they arrive on time. The Department is currently transporting a total of 57 187 learners in both primary and secondary schools.
No Fee Schools
The Department increased access to no fee schools by extending the programme to learners in 46 secondary schools and 118 primary quintile 4 and 5 schools in the province. A total of 164 (147 quintile 4 and 17 quintile 5) schools were declared "no fee" paying schools and a total of 12 new schools have applied for 2012 financial year.
We received 249 applications for school fee exemption by 30 July 2011. By 15 November 2011, we had paid R11 562 746 to 223 schools to assist them with fee exemptions. We will be paying an additional R1 189 262 to 21 schools by end of March.
Conclusion
The key to making education a societal priority is to mobilise the community to participate in educational policy dialogue and educational programmes. In March, all schools will participate in the school governing body (SGB) elections. Planning and training for these elections have taken place.
We encourage parents to participate in the elections either by being nominated or voting for their peers. Remember, your SGB vote counts, so make the education of your child your priority.
Enquiries:
Charles Phahlane
Tel: 011 355 1530
Cell: 071 860 4496
The Gauteng Department of Education is steadily fulfilling the promise of providing quality education
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