Thabo Mohlala
Free State education MEC, Tate Makgoe, made a bold commitment yesterday that his department would retain its pole position for the third time in a row as the best performing province in 2018.
Still basking in the glory of his department’s 2017 matric exam victory, Makgoe spoke at Rehauhetswe Secondary School in Rammulotsi, Viljoenskroon to kick off the start of the 2018 academic year. The school is one of those that contributed to the province’s high pass rate with a 100% pass rate.
Speaking to SABC TV, Makgoe said he was extremely excited that schools performing well in the province were in township communities. He said this was a great motivation for black children and a sign they can hold their own against children from well-resourced areas.
“You must remember that 85% of our schools are no-fee paying schools and so when you see schools such as Rehauhetswe Secondary giving us 100% pass rate, we get very excited. We are saying to all the black children in the province of the Free State, it can be achieved and I am very proud that this year we have 20 similar poor township based schools that gave us solid 100% pass rate. We want to inculcate the culture in our learners that you don’t look back; you just have to look forward and achieve what you want to achieve,” said Makgoe
He said the high pass rate has created healthy competition and set the bar high for the learners and schools and encouraged them to continue to work hard and produce better results. He said this could also be attributed to the critical role that the districts play in supporting the schools.
“It is not surprising that the best district (Fezile Dabi) in South Africa comes from the Free State. The second best district (Thabo Mafutsanyana) comes from the Free State and that the only two districts that got 90% come from here. Clearly, we are on the league of our own, what we need to focus on on a continuous basis is to work on our primary schools so that we have more and more learners getting bachelors passes,” said Makgoe.
He said he was excited that schools from other parts of the province were also contributing to the overall pass rate. Take, for instance, Rantsane High School in QwaQwa, which he said produced 100% pass rate and 91% bachelors passes and Mohaladitwe Secondary School, which gave them a 100% pass rate and 85% bachelors.
“It is exciting that township schools are setting high performance standards for other township schools, added Makgoe.
Makgoe said they made sure that all resources needed for learning and teaching have been delivered to schools days before teaching commenced.
“Our systems are rolling; learner study materials and textbooks have been delivered. There might be shortages here and there because of the constantly growing numbers of our learner population,” he said.
Makgoe said they experienced phenomenal growth in the number of learners because of the good matric pass passes his department produced. “
We have learners from other provinces such as Gauteng, Eastern Cape and others and this growth is bound to put our resources under stress,” he said.
Makgoe vowed the Free State “will again in 2018 achieve the 90% pass rate and the 40% bachelor rate and the latter has been eluding us and we are going to be working very hard to achieve it. We’ve already been working with grade 11s, who are in grade 12 this year, they have been attending camps and they are ready to give us good results”, adding that “determination is much more important than resources in this game of education”.
