Staff Reporter
Basic Education Director-General, Mathanzima Mweli, this week, concluded the Western Cape and Free State leg of his national Reading Literacy engagements.
DG Mweli, together with his team of senior managers from the DBE, convened the engagements with district and provincial officials, primary and high school principals. The engagements, which took place from 28 August 2023 to 01 September 2023, commenced in George, Cape Town and proceeded to Bethlehem, Bloemfontein and lastly, Kroonstad to capacitate officials on the effective implementation of reading strategies and to increase support for the Class of 2023 to improve learning outcomes.
Mweli encouraged officials from both provinces to implement effective strategies, to strengthen learner support programmes for all grades, to lead to an education and training system of the highest quality through significantly improved learning outcomes as the National Development plan enjoins us to do.
“The Mathematics results in our country are very concerning and principals should ensure that teachers provide adequate support to struggling learners, in Mathematics and Languages in particular.”
In his presentation, Seliki Tlhabane, Chief Director for Mathematics, Science and Technology and Curriculum Enhancement Programmes, stated that Mathematics is not performing well, therefore the Basic Education Sector requires resources to improve learning outcomes of the subject: For too long our performance in Mathematics has been very low, both in the General Education and Training (GET), as well as Further Education and Training (FET) Bands.
He also emphasized that the Curriculum is structured in such a way that it is accessible to all learners, for instance there is low order content (Cognitive levels 1&2), Medium order content (Cognitive level 3), and High order content (Cognitive level 4).
All teachers should be able to teach learners well to at least do very well in Cognitive levels 1 and 2.
He also emphasized the need for extensive monitoring by School Principals and School Management Teams.
The National and Provincial Education Departments will provide additional support to schools to ensure that struggling learners are given adequate resources and support through various intervention programmes.
In her presentation on leading basic school functionality from the front, Agnes Rasesemola, former principal of Sunrise View Secondary School in the North West Province, in sharing her journey as a School Principal concluded her presentation by making the following observations: “Control is an illusion; We need to focus on influence rather than control”; “Let us be Selfless: Serving is Leadership”; “Let us be the Thermostat of Positive School Culture”; Let us be accountable to our Teachers”; “Let us be the Cheerleaders and Praise our staff”; “The cow does not give milk, you have to milk it”
INSIDE EDUCATION
