The new Lethabong School of Specialisation in Soshanguve has been hailed as a game-changer and an institution with potential to equip learners with skills to operate in the automotive industry in future.
This was the sentiment expressed yesterday by different speakers during the official launch of the school marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday.
The school will specialise in teaching maths, science and information and communication technology.
Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane remarked that Lethabong was initially not part of 35 schools in the province to be transformed into schools of specialisation.
“We don’t just take any school,” Chiloane said, adding that underperforming schools don’t meet the criteria to be turned into schools of specialisation.
“Schools of specialisation are our flagship schools in the province as the department. These are schools that when present, anywhere in the world, our provincial education school system we highlight them,” he said.
He emphasised that it was important for a school to show good performance by producing outstanding results.
“Being a school of specialisation is not an easy thing.The competition is tough. I hear that you are celebrating 94% (of matric results pass rate). It is not good enough. School of specialisation must obtain 100% continually,” he said.
He acknowledged the role played by the school principal to successfully lobby for her school to be transformed into a school of specialisation.
Chiloane said Lethabong was the 34th school of specialisation to be launched, to date.
Principal Maphefo Malope described the initiative as “a great opportunity” that would offer learners a curriculum preparing them for a job market after school.
“Learners are going to be learning a curriculum that is work-related so that after they have completed matric they could either be able to open their own businesses or they can join the job market even without going to universities,” she said.
Currently, she said, learners were preoccupied with projects such as coding and robotics, which is linked to the automotive industry.
“Most of our engineering offers soft skills like programming. In our country we have so many accidents and casualties. When a car is coded it is able to respond when it sees an obstacle or a stop sign,” she said.
She explained that for a school to be turned into a school of specialisation the department of education looked at its performance and infrastructure.
For Lethabong to qualify as an SOS Malope approached a car-manufacturing company, BMW, asking for its assistance in improving the infrastructure at her school.
“BMW was working in the nearby school and I asked them to also include us in their project to improve the school’s infrastructure. They were also willing to assist us. As a principal, I have a responsibility not to wait for the department to help but I should make an initiative to look for public-private partnership. We have more than 12 sponsors,” she said.
On the challenge for her school to obtain a 100% matric pass rate, she said: “We are driven by our motor that ‘failure is not an option’. We believe that a 100 matric pass rate is achievable.”
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