Back to School Development Campaign in OR Tambo Coastal

ECDoE visited the two best performing school in the OR Tambo Coastal District in Lusikisiki recently as part of Back to School Development Campaign recently.

The first school the Department visited was Ben Mali Senior Secondary School, Mahlubandile Majova, school principal gave a brief background of the school and how they managed to improve their pass rate from 28, 2% to 94, 8% with the increase of 66%. He said “Ben Mali SSS (Senior Secondary School) was established in April 1997 with 2 streams academic and commerce.  It started with 3 teachers and 59 learners and 5 classes built by the community”. Ben Mali Deputy Principal Nomathemba Silwana said that “the school improvement was by conducting parent meeting for grade 12 learners to motivate and evaluate learners performance, extra classes were held and the ECDoE supported them by making circuit Managers visible to the school and providing armed security during the final exams”. Therefore, they will continue to maintain their standard by implementing discipline to both Educators and Learners.

Life Science and Life Orientation teacher, Bulelwa Ntame said that, “through determination, painful training and commitment, we have achieved this”. The teachers were committed when conducting extra classes and prepared to go an extra mile. Challenges the school have are Poor fencing as a result some laptops were stolen at the school, the school does not have proper furniture, science equipment and scholar transport, said one of the school learners. He said, “we have to walk long kilometres to and from school, and we cross a big river that makes it difficult for us to arrive on time. But under those circumstances they will continue to work hard and to maintain their passing record.

The second school that ECDoE visited in the OR Tambo Coastal district was Siwali Senior Secondary School in Lusikisiki, where the ECDoE Communication Team managed to interview Sivuyisiwe Nyando, the school deputy principal. He said, “the results from this school has been good for the past 5 years, in 2012 academic year the school got 98.3 %, 2013 obtained 71.3%, 2014 72%, 2015 65.3%, 2016 75.3 % and in 2016 94.8%”.  Furthermore out of the 77 matriculants that wrote the final exams only 73 passed and 37 out of the 73 passed with a Bachelor degree.  They have done this through setting working target, teacher’s accountability, they held meetings with teachers for verifications and they were given instruction to finish their syllabus by July in order to have enough revision time.

Caretaker Simlindile Bhekaphantsi said, “the only challenge that we have is poor fencing, the school have been broken in 2016 and 2017 and there is no shelter for us, we have to sit in the gate raining or not”. He appeal to the department to assist Caretakers with a shelter.