Johannesburg - Learners will, in the near future, have an option to take up subjects such as hairdressing and beauty technology, mechanical technology, art and design and agriculture in high school.
The Department of Basic Education has published 13 new subjects it intends to introduce to schools as it implements its three-stream model.
These subjects will be introduced in Grades 8 and Grades 9, in line with the incoming General Education Certificate (GEC).
Learners will receive the certificate after completing Grade 9. Plans for the GEC caused a public uproar in 2019, as people believed it was to be an exit certificate.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga moved to dispel reports that the certificate would make it unnecessary for learners to obtain matric.
She said the GEC was not a school-leaving certificate, “contrary to media reports that learners would finish school in Grade 9”.
It was a certificate that “will enable learners to elect various pathways and continue with their education at different institutions where they will be exposed to skills training in available trades”.
Furthermore, it was part of the three-stream model which had academic, technical vocational and the occupational pathways.
The gazette announcing the 13 subjects invited public comments on the “new Grades 8 and 9 subjects developed as part of the three stream model to be listed in the National Curriculum”.
The other subjects were civil technology, consumer studies, digital technology, early childhood development, hospitality studies, maintenance and upholstery and wholesale and retail.
South Africa had a problem of millions of its youth leaving school without any skills or piece of paper showing that they went to school, experts and the government’s own data showed.
Of about a million young people who exit the schooling system annually, 65% leave without achieving the Grade 12 certificate, according to the Draft National Youth Policy for 20202030 published earlier this year.
Said Motshekga: “Approximately a third of young people aged 15 to 24 years (3.4 million) are not in employment, education or training and two million of whom have not finished Grade 12.”
Allen Thompson, National Teachers Union president, said the technical subjects were just what the country needed to secure the future of millions of youngsters.
There should not be a teacher supply crisis, Thompson said. “The shortage is going to be temporary. When there’s a need for these technical stream teachers, there will be a demand,” he said. But the new model will make an impact if the technical subjects were introduced across all the schools, Thompson said.
“The (technical teacher) posts should be created in the rural and township schools too. You don’t want to have a situation where only the former Model C schools and other schools that benefited from apartheid get the posts.”
The Star