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Quality Education

Responsibility, accountability vital for better education

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:30

By Luyanda Makapela

Employees of the Education department and its institutions must be principled and accountable in their daily work, in order to improve school results and uplift the standard of learning in South Africa.

“In order to evaluate progress vigorously in all schools and colleges, we have to have an agreed set of values and goals and the school community should know the values and goals of such institutions.

“It cannot be acceptable for us to leave schools to lurch unchecked from one disastrous performance to another,” said Education Minister Naledi Pandor commenting on recommendations in a report aimed at revitalizing the education system in poor areas.

These findings come after the minister set up a ministerial committee in 2007 to examine what made ordinary public schools in lower-income areas successful.

In order to evaluate progress vigorously in all schools and colleges, the minister said an agreed set of values and goals were needed for better running and functioning of these institutions.

“Education Laws and Amendment Act requires that all schools table annual performance plans and prepare half-year reports and there is a provision for schools to be put under administration if they consistently fail to meet their goals,” Ms Pandor said.

She said there were many successful schools which were often located within spitting distance of schools that were plagued by social and academic dislocation.

“These schools serve the same community. I wanted to know, what is it that makes the one [school] successful and others unsuccessful.

“The report recommends key actions should form central part of any strategy aimed at rescuing our education system from deteriorating,” Ms Pandor said.

Of these recommendations, the minister said schools needed to become supportive learning communities with education committees focused on teaching and learning.

She said teachers could form teaching teams that developed school-based material, internal tests and school professional development programmes.

“A learning community draws on the entire school's human and material resources, throws off the shackles of victimhood, and sets itself on a path of whole school achievement,” explained Ms Pandor.

Commenting on some teachers who find it impossible to improve the minister said: “We need to accept that some teachers are just not suited to teaching.

“It is simply not true that all teachers mature over time. But it is true that committed and resilient teachers inspire confidence in their pupils and produce good results.”

President Thabo Mbeki has announced a mass literacy campaign, the Kha Ri Gude project to provide basic literacy classes to 300 000 adults and youth.

This emerged from Mr Mbeki's State of the Nation Address, which focused on a Business Unusual approach, delivered at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town.

As part of the Adult Basic Education and Training programme (ABET), the President said: "We shall this month launch the Kha Ri Gude mass literacy campaign.

"This will include the training of master trainers who will provide basic literacy classes to 300 000 adults and youth in 2008."

Kha Ri Gude will be rolled out as a pilot in 2008, and will go to scale in 2009.

Mr Mbeki had also outlined government's intention to develop an overarching strategy this year to prioritise key interventions in the Further Education and Training colleges (FET), the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) and the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs).

He said an element of government's Apex of Priorities would be the deliberate focus on matters of skills development.

"... resourcing schools in the lowest three quintiles, freeing them from the responsibility to charge fees, and speeding up on-the-job training for professional graduates." Mr Mbeki said.

- BuaNews