A team led by Mxolisi Dimaza who is the Member of the Provincial Legislature and also chairperson of the Health Portfolio Committee conducted an impromptu visit at Atwell Madala High School in Mthatha(OR Tambo Inland District) on 26 January 2018.

The School Readiness programme is designed to check the status of readiness of all schools in the province for the whole year.Dimaza started by explaining to the Principal Yalelwa Mfecane and her School Management Team (SMT) the purpose of the visit, “Every beginning of the year, the Education Portfolio Committee visits schools to see their state of readiness for that particular year. What happens is that a Districtgives our team a list of all schools to be visited, the reason vary as some are one of the best performing and some are the worst, sometimes we visit any school though they are not on thelist,” said Dimaza.  He further explained that every member of the Provincial Legislature,“no matter which portfolio committee you serve under if Education needs your help you must help.”

“We mainly focus on the Admissions, Results, Teacher Pupil Ratio, Learner, Teacher Support Material (LTSM), Nutrition, Scholar Transport and School Governing Body (SGB),” explained Dimaza.

Mrs. Mfecane stated that as a school they are facing a lot of challenges, especially in the 2017 school calendar year.“We lost 2 Science teachers through death and 1 Mathematics teacher was attacked by a stroke and we have no substitute for that teacher since March 2017, overcrowding is one of the major problems we are facing, the total enrollment is 1571 for 2018 and no infrastructure. Classrooms are overcrowded.”

With sadness in her face she said, “the pass rate for our Matric students has dropped since 2015 to 2017. In 2015 it was 66%, 2016 it was 62% and now in 2017 it is 56,5%.” She also said that there was no Nutrition and Scholar Programme at the School. Transfers and promotions during the school academic year disrupts the academic year for the schools they are leaving behind. We acknowledge that there is a problem and we as Educators at the School need to conduct an introspection within ourselves and not blame one another for us to improve the status of our school.”

Mr. Phumzile Mashalaba,  from the Education Department who heads the Maths and Science Subjects voiced his concerns over the loss of the Maths and Science teachers and promised that he would do everything in his power to help the School resolve these issues before it’s too late.