Johnathan Paoli
Gauteng MEC for Transport and Logistics, Kedibone Diale-Tlabela, on Monday, conducted an over-site visit at Petit High School in Ekurhuleni North, Benoni.
The visit formed part of the Gauteng Provincial Government’s oversight visits in Gauteng schools to monitor the overall readiness of schools upon re-opening for the 2024 academic year and are part of the Back-to-School campaign, which also includes activities such as the handover of new schools.
The department said that the oversight visits to schools were meant to ensure that there was effective teaching and learning in all schools and further ensured that appropriate resources were in place.
The provincial government, led by Premier Panyaza Lesufi, has a tradition of conducting oversight visits to schools across the province to monitor their readiness for the new academic year which were led by MECs, including Education MEC Matome Chiloane.
During these visits, the MECs observe the first day of teaching and learning and conduct oversight visits to Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDs) to gauge their preparedness.
The 2020 matric class of Petit High School obtained a 76.7% pass rate higher than 70% attained in the year 2019 National Senior Certificate Examination. The 193 learners wrote the exam in 2020 from 200 in 2019. From 2018 to 2020, the school attained an average of 78.6% pass rate.
In the year 2023, the matric class of Petit High School obtained a drop in the pass rate to 67.9 %.
Petit High School is a public secondary school located in an industrial area of Benoni in Gauteng Province, South Africa.
The school was formally reopened in 1998 as a High School to accommodate the overflow of learners from former Model C schools.
While starting off with 500 learners from areas such as Daveyton, Benoni, Kempton Park and Springs, the GDE decided to place the grade 8-12 learners from two farm schools, namely Bekekayo Primary and Mehlaring Combined School due to poor performance.
This movement led to an increase in enrollment numbers beyond capacity, and as a result, an extra Home language (isiZulu) and first additional language (English) was introduced.
In addition, the exponential increase of learners resulted in the introduction of a number of additional makeshift or temporary classrooms with the SGB assisting in erection.
In 2020, the school received a budget of R982 570 from the GDE for the Self-Built classroom project, with which the school managed to efficiently build 3 classrooms and completed them in record time.
The school is a Section 21 school meaning it is allocated finances by the department and is responsible for ordering stationery, textbooks, paying water and lights accounts and undertaking their own maintenance under ACD functions and classified under quintile 4.
MMC for Transport Planning Andile Mgwevu said it remained important to remember the future that lies ahead of learners were decided upon by their own decisions and encouraged the matriculants that life started after matric.
Diale-Tlabela called on the learners not to rush into life, and remain focused on achieving their goals and warned the learners on making the right choices in life and said that it was one’s commitments that determined one’s achievements.
“The growth of the economy is fundamentally dependent upon a good infrastructure, which would only be possible through good education,” the MEC said.
She referred to the learners as the investment of the SA government and warned against teenage pregnancy.
“In our democratic government it is free for someone who cannot afford to have a child, to access the clinics, as the child has rights and needs to be protected,” the MEC said.
Petit High school Principal D.D Mkhabela said that three learners of Grade 12 and seven learners from Grade 11 were currently pregnant and called on them to focus on their studies.
Both the MEC as well as the circuit manager hailed the fact that fees at the school were meant to be R1200 and yet due to government funding only required parents to pay R500 per month.
The MEC said that the high HIV rate of the youth called for a warning surrounding the dangers of unprotected sex, physically, psychologically as well as the more long term consequences, namely the importance of delaying in order to make the right decision that one could live with for the rest of one’s life.
Diale-Tlabela said that students should remain vigilant over the challenges facing high-school life and keep in mind that the decisions made today bore an impact on the future one was trying to create.
In conclusion, the MEC, MMCs and the principal Mkhabela partook in a walk-about around the school grounds, inspecting the developments thus far achieved.
INSIDE EDUCATION
