South Africa’s matriculants of 2022 have done exceptionally well. The decision to have one non-racial education has paid off handsomely.
Teachers across the country at the beginning of the year rolled up their sleeves with the National Department of Basic Education to produce outstanding results.
As part of the government’s decision to stop corruption, a clear message was sent out to parents, teachers and learners that, in education, everybody has to work extremely hard.
The former private schools joined forces with the majority of schools. Government rolled out a plan to upgrade all schools together with sport facilities.
There is a renewed spirit in education across the country. It is like a teacher who was very frustrated with her principal for his lack of foresight in building the school.
As part of the new governance in schools, senior staff who did not perform have been replaced by teachers who are competent. Teachers in promotion posts have to justify remaining in those positions every five years.
All schools have to have at least two computer laboratories with qualified staff.
Each school has a qualified psychologist and one male and one female physical education teacher. Life orientation since the beginning of the year is a non-examinable subject.
All students have to take maths as a compulsory subject. The maximum number of learners in a maths class since the beginning of the year has been 25.
The student-teacher ratio is 1:30. New schools are being built on the border of well-developed areas where learners of the poor will be educated in order for them to feel that the country cares about them.
Political education has been instituted in all schools for teachers to ask the difficult questions about how to get all the schools to progress.
Government fully finances schools. Companies in the country are charged a tax to assist the government to fully fund education.
The government has since January instituted a teacher exchange process with countries in Africa and the rest of the world in order to give teachers an insight into education across the world.
The government has encouraged people from the private sector to get involved with education.
This has seen many learners get insight into the businesses in their areas.
Business and schools have developed a good relationship. There is more working together of schools and there is no doubt in the schools who have worked together that education has progressed.
The government must be pleased that in the educational arena, we are beginning to do well in international benchmark testing. This working together has resulted in a much improved state of our education.
Teachers, parents and students believe that they are being given a quality education by a government that is serious about education.
I believe that what I have sketched can be achieved in South Africa. Let us all work together to achieve this dream.
* Brian Isaacs.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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