This year, the Gauteng Department of Education will focus on improving learner performance in schools. Both President Zuma and Premier Mokonyane have stressed that improving the outcomes of our education system are central to providing decent work and developing our economy.
Our president and our premier have made it clear that by 2014 we need to ensure that learners leave primary schools able to read, write and achieve in basic mathematics and that our matric pass rate needs to improve, with a higher percentage of young people achieving a university entrance.
The Gauteng Department of education has, for the past few years, sought to improve learners’ levels of achievement in numeracy and literacy. While some progress has been recorded, particularly as regards the number of learners in schools in disadvantaged communities who study maths and science, the goals of quality teaching, learning and achievement in these critical subjects have not been achieved.
In line with the national priority to improve maths and science education, the Gauteng Department of Education has developed a revised comprehensive maths, science and technology education improvement strategy. This maths, science and technology strategy is the result of wide consultations with school principals and teachers, departmental officials, universities and local experts in maths and science education.
Their collective experience of what to, and importantly what not to do, have resulted in a realistic and feasible approach to the task.
The intervention is multi faceted and includes formulating strategies for teacher pre-service and in-service education and training, secondly, we will focus on the role of resources in improving the quality of learning. This includes the improvement of infrastructure, appropriate fixtures and fittings, equipment and quality learning support materials. Thirdly, we will implement a sustainable strategy for improving learner achievement through holiday camps and weekend classes. Fourthly, we must build the capacity of the system; schools, districts and head office to ensure that quality learning is effectively managed and takes place optimally.
With regards to literacy, government research has shown that the majority of learners in the Gauteng province are not able to read or write at the levels required by the national curriculum. Targets have been set by the Presidency and Department of Education. Specifically, by 2014 60 percent of grade six learners in Gauteng will be at or above the national literacy achievement standard.
To accomplish this, the Gauteng primary literacy strategy is built on four pillars: annual external assessment of all Grade three and grade six learners, the provision of high quality literacy textbooks, workbooks, readers and teacher guides for all learners in 790 underperforming primary schools, the provision of learner support, and improvement of district and school management of primary literacy practice.
In terms of support to learners, the strategy includes a social marketing campaign to encourage parents to read to their children in the home and support their children's reading and writing homework, coordination and alignment of the work of the literacy non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the province, and the development of primary school libraries in 790 underperforming primary schools in the province.
Various tests, locally and internationally, show that our learners are failing numeracy and literacy. About 28 percent of grade three learners pass literacy and about 44 percent have numeracy skills. This improves slightly in grade six, with an average of just below 40 percent of learners with language skills and just over 50 percent can do maths.
If we are to develop a skilled workforce needed to grow the economy of the country, we need to improve learner performance throughout the education system, especially in the foundation phase.
There are a number of factors both learner-related and institutional that result in poor learner performance. Learner-related factors include inadequate curriculum management and coverage during the year, ineffective school-based systems for monitoring curriculum delivery, lack of standardised lesson plans and practical assignments and tasks, and the quality of teaching and assessment is not optimal. Institutional factors include learner and educator discipline, school safety, poor hygiene, cleanliness and infrastructure, poverty and social deprivation.
Last year we developed a five year strategic plan (2009 to 2014) to achieve better education outcomes. This plan is based on the following four pillars. These are to:
* Ensure that Gauteng has effective schools and learning institutions
* Gauteng Department of Education’s head office and districts provide relevant, coordinated and effective support to schools
* Enable young people to make the transition from school to further education and or work that provides further training opportunities
* Strengthen partnerships with all stakeholders, resulting in education becoming a societal priority.
The new approach to science, maths and literacy aims to give concrete expression to ensuring that our schools are effective learning institutions and that our head office and districts provide relevant and appropriate support to schools.
Obviously none of this will be possible unless we build effective community partnerships to make sure President Zuma’s non negotiable of teachers and learners in class learning and teaching for seven hours a day is achieved. A province wide back to school campaign has helped to get education off to an early start in our province and to deal with the inevitable challenges of late registration of learners and overcrowding.
Our department would like to thank the many public representatives, community members and the private sector for visiting schools throughout the province and contributing so generously to cleaning and repairing our schools. Your efforts have inspired us and given us hope.
Next month our department will host a meeting of faith based organisations to discuss ways in which this important community can assist in entrenching the culture of learning and teaching in our province and deepen the involvement of parents and community members in their children’s education. We also see this as an important way in which the faith based sector will be able to offer pastoral support to schools affected by violence. Such partnerships have already been running on a pilot basis in Merafong, Eersterus, and Boipatong.
To help learners to access opportunities for further and higher education we have already issued over 350 of the 700 bursaries we have committed to matriculants from quintile one, two and three schools. This brings to almost 4 000 the number of learners on Gauteng provincial government bursaries in higher educational institutions.
We will continue to link 2 000 other learners to educational opportunities and provide them with financial support. We are targeting eight learnerships in Gauteng coordinated through the Gauteng City Region Academy in areas including artisan training, information communication technology (ICT) training, cooperatives, heritage learnerships, creative industries, and auto industry.
Training is in specific areas including traffic officers, office administration, human resources management, construction, motor mechanics, information technology, boiler making, electrical, welding, plumbing, fitting and turning, social auxiliary work, child and youth care.
This year we will begin a series of road shows throughout the province targeting learners in Grades 8 and 9 to ensure they have timely information about matric subject choice before they go to grade 10.
Issued by: Department of Education, Gauteng Provincial Government
23 February 2010
Source: SAPA
