The FSS initiative is specially designed to assist challenged and underperforming schools, especially in rural areas, to improve their learning outcomes.
Acting school principal, July Mdluli, attributed the school’s improvement to the assistance and support received from the programme to Improve Learning Outcomes (PILO) team which implements educational programmes supported by the NECT in the province.
In order to ensure there is another positive increase in results for the 2016 academic year, the PILO team together with the district officials started the implementation of the District Improvement Programme, which includes the appointment and orientation of school coaches. As part of these preparatory activities, training workshops were also held in the district including the Just in Time content-based training programmes. The workshops were hosted in the uThungulu and Pinetown districts to assist teachers in mastering curriculum content and to ensure they are able to use the materials specially designed for curriculum coverage and management.
In addition to this, the team held Mathematics and Science teacher development training in January, in collaboration with the South African Council for Educators (SACE), the ETDP SETA, and the Centre for Advancing Science and Mathematics Education (CASME). Mathematics and Science are two subjects vital to the NECT education transformation objective. This is in line with the National Development Plan’s (NDP) education goals, that: 90% of learners pass mathematics, science and languages at an average 50% level by 2030.
During this training, CASME introduced a mathematics programme known as “Geogebra”, which allows teachers to teach using their mobile devices, laptops, iPads and PCs by visiting the geogebra website.
The NECT also, in partnership with the Department of Basic Education (DBE), implemented very strict measures to ensure learning materials and textbooks were delivered on time to various distribution centres before schools reopened. Interns were deployed and trained for two days in logistics and distribution management to assist in the distribution of the materials and to help teachers resolve any shortages or problems.
The pre-planning implemented in the districts was a great success, with both Pinetown and uThungulu delivering the required materials on time. uThungulu district went further by arranging local warehouse facilities to ensure the material are not only delivered on time, but are stored safely. Through programmes and initiatives such as these, the NECT continues to work in collaboration with business, civil society, government and labour to improve learning outcomes in the uThungulu and Pinetown districts in KwaZulu-Natal to ultimately achieve the education goals of the NDP.
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