This week the Gauteng Department of Education will formally launch the expanded Secondary School Improvement Plan (SSIP). This year’s expanded programme targets 51 000 matriculants who attend 391 schools that achieved less than an 80% pass rate in last year’s matric exams. Our message is: Gauteng Matric class of 2011: it starts here and now!
We have expanded the number of SSIP sites throughout the province from 94 to 109 this year. Classes are held every Saturday and during school holidays. We have employed 1 800 expert tutors to provide tuition to learners in Grade 12 in the following subjects: maths, maths literacy, accounting, physical science, life science, history and geography. We are also providing study material in economics, business studies and English first additional language as well as tuition in these subjects during the school holidays.
One of the positive lessons learned from the public sector strike last year, is the interest learners have in establishing study groups. We believe these played a major role in learner performance and encouraged learners to take greater responsibility for their own learning processes. We will now be incorporating self study groups in the programme for the next three years and provide learners with study material. To motivate learners to study consistently, the SSIP sites will be visited by artists, sporting legends and motivational speakers.
In response to widespread public concern regarding the high drop-out rate in the senior secondary schooling phase, we are offering tuition in maths, physical science and accounting for Grades 10 and 11. This programme will run during school holidays only and we encourage Grade 10 and 11 learners to participate. To ensure sustainability of the programme beyond the three years, we will this year train educators in SSIP schools.
We will align and interface daily classroom work during the week and SSIP work on weekends. Districts will monitor the daily delivery of lessons according to pace setters as well as monitor SSIP over the weekend to identify, react to, and resolve issues and misalignments. We all know that to sustain educational improvements in our province we have to renew our system from the beginning. To this end, we have dubbed 2011 the year of the Foundation Phase Educator. We are continuing to implement our numeracy and literacy strategies with vigour in our 791 under performing primary schools.
A project team has been established to manage the implementation of the Gauteng Primary Literacy Strategy. In January, we trained 6 500 foundation phase educators in literacy and provided them with resources including workbooks. We will this year also provide numeracy training to these educators so that learners in Grades 1, 2 and 3 receive a good grounding in reading and arithmetic. Library trolleys have been distributed to schools that have no libraries.
We have trained coaches who are starting to provide classroom based support to educators and in March we will begin training foundation phase management teams to assist educators to manage the roll out of the programme. In January I met over 7 000 foundation phase principals, educators and SGB chairs. The response to this meeting with educators was so enthusiastic, that I have decided to hold district based follow up meetings with all foundation phase educators from the 791 primary schools so that they can engage in more detailed discussions regarding the programme. Six district visits have already been conducted and I hope to conclude the balance by the end of March.
To ensure learners are school ready by Grade 1, the Early Childhood Development programme remains a key priority. To date 75 720 learners have access to 2 525 registered Grade R sites in public ordinary schools, while 279 community-based sites cater for 8 370 learners. This means a total of 84 090 learners from our previously disadvantaged communities now have access to Grade R programmes within the province prior to entering Grade 1.
A total of 1 200 Grade R practitioners are currently undergoing training, with 585 at NQF L4 and 615 at NQF L5. To support the early childhood programmes of the Department of Social Development, 1 190 pre-grade R practitioners are undergoing training at the NQF L4 level, with 750 having to undergo a bridging course in the absence of NQF L1 before they are enrolled into the NQF L4 training. We provided 238 Grade R fully resourced mobile classrooms during the current financial year.
As part of our school readiness campaign, Gauteng Provincial Government Executive Council Members visited schools to assess their state of readiness for the first day of schooling. One of our school readiness indicators is admissions. The campaign to encourage parents to register early for the following school year has been successful. We received 13 129 applications for late admissions this year compared to 25 414 last year. Part of the reasons for this reduction can be attributed to a publicity drive targeted at areas with the highest late registration applications.
We conducted advocacy work with communities and civil society structures. We also worked with schools since May 2010 to assist them with the admission processes. Last month, we appealed to parents who needed space in our schools and had not yet applied to seek assistance at district offices. Our officials worked very hard in January to find space for parents who presented themselves at district operation centres. Some of the reasons for late registrations include changing places of residence after the closing date for admissions, or in-migration to the province.
The increased rate of admission in our schools has put pressure on classroom space. We are prioritising the delivery of extra classrooms to those identified. We are working around the clock to expedite the delivery of the 2 000 prefabricated classrooms we ordered in the latter half of 2010. Contractors have manufactured 1 314 prefabricated classrooms and delivered 1 055. Of those, 844 are ready for occupation.
To improve safety in our schools, the department has reprioritised the budget so that we can fence 540 schools identified as needing urgent attention. The majority of these schools had wire fences and we are replacing them with palisade fences. Contractors have completed 30 schools and are on site in 278 schools. Fencing is about to begin in 96 schools and fencing maintenance work is being conducted in 45 schools. Manufacturing of palisade fences for 91 school fences is underway.
To facilitate implementation of other aspects of our school safety strategy, I will shortly be meeting with School Governing Body (SGB) Associations to ensure we can standardise content in school safety strategies and the protocol for reporting incidents. We are also focusing on advocacy programmes in high risk schools including anti-racism, anti-bullying, anti-sexism and anti-xenophobia.
For more information contact:
Charles Phahlane
Tel: 011 355 1530
Cell: 071 860 4496
