Programme Director, Honourable Premier, Mr Supra Ramoeletsi Mahumapelo
Colleagues in EXCO
Members of Parliament and of the Provincial Legislature
Leaders of political parties
The Director-General of North West, Dr. L. Sebego
The Executive Mayor of the Bojanala District Municipality, Cllr L. Diremelo and Councillors
Archbishop Zondo
Bishop Matebesi
Leadership of the National Interfaith Council of South Africa(NICSA)
Teacher Unions, the Vice Chancellor of North West University, Prof Dan Kgwadi
Prof. Davannah Maselesele, Rector of the North West University, Mafikeng Campus
The Association of Governing Bodies
Superintendent-General
Senior Managers of the department
Officials and Members of the Administrative Corps
The Academia
The Media
Learners and Parents
Comrades and friends Greetings from Team Education. We meet here today to release the results of the 2015 cohort of Grade 12 learners. This cohort started their schooling in Grade 1 in 2004 and completed Grade 12 in 2015. This is the second cohort to write the adjusted Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement, better known as CAPS.
It is Aristotle who said: “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all" and in the words of our beloved former president Nelson Mandela:
We always manage to get strength and power from his words in order to continue with the mammoth educating task, we understand that education is not only teaching subject knowledge but also educating learners to become citizens of our democracy who can successfully contribute to the development of our country and our future.
We can now agree that in 1994 the task may have looked rather complex and confusing, but then it was only the first steps on the democratic education road. Now, in 2016, we should remember that the task still remains challenging. Maturing not only means that you realise your dependence on others but you can also be comfortable with your own competence.
In his State of the Nation address on 12 February 2015, President Zuma said: “The year 2015 is the year of investing more in our future, by educating our children and the youth about the heritage of this country”. He further emphasised again the 3 T’s: Teacher in each classroom, Time on Task and a Textbook for each learner in each subject.
“Education therefore remains an apex priority for this government. We will continue to promote universal access to education by ensuring that all children between ages 7 and 15 are in school. We will increase the number of Grade 12 learners who can gain entrance to university.” The results of 2015 indicate that we are on the right track as far as this goal is concerned.
In the State of the Province address on 16 March 2015, our honourable Premier Mr Supra Ramoeletsi Mahumapelo said: “The number of children receiving free education has increased significantly. The percentage of people in the Province without any formal education has decreased to only 8% in 2013.” Important to note is that 7 220 more candidates wrote the examination in 2015
In my 2015/16 budget speech I said that: “Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children.”
The 2015 academic year commenced with the monitoring of the re-opening of schools, aimed at checking system readiness. In this regard, many of our schools were geared to provide lessons on the very first day of schooling and we look forward to the same trend next week when schools re-open for 2016.
The North West Education Department and Sport Development has often emphasised that our province is a mining and agricultural province which relies heavily on the production of more Mathematics, Science, Technology and Commerce learners.
Special efforts need to be made to improve the quality of the Gr. 12 Mathematics, Physical Sciences, Accounting and Mathematical Literacy results. We are also compelled to bring other Sciences and Technology as well as Commerce to the stable of pure Mathematics and Physical Sciences. I am delighted about the introduction of Technical Mathematics and Technical Physical Sciences with the specialisation in our Technical Schools in 2016.
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