Alan Winde
At least 150000 people are semigrating to the Western Cape every year and we have seen the evidence of this in our school for many years.
Thousands of extra learners are flocking to our province each year because they know they stand a better chance of having access to a quality education.
We need to make sure our children are able to leave school with the knowledge and skills they need for higher education or the world of work.
While our matric pass rate is increasing every year, notably in our poorest communities in quintile 1, 2 and 3 schools, this is not the only measure we use to determine the quality of an education system.
Only the DA-run Western Cape undertakes annual systemic testing in Grades 3, 6 and 9. So only the Western Cape was able to reveal and analyse the full extent of the learning losses our children suffered because of school closures and alternating days at school as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We used this detailed information to create our BackOnTrack programme, which targets every single school phase with extra training, support, and classes. The programme is the largest programme to reverse learning losses in the country, and is exactly the scale of intervention that education experts called for.
Our province has led the way in Early Learning, with massive financial investments in literacy and numeracy for our youngest learners. We also took the step of adding two hours of reading and an hour of maths for every learner in Grade 1, 2 and 3 each week without lengthening the school day. It has been so effective that the national government has now recommended every province follow our example.
We now have an average of around 11000 Grade 4, 7, 8, 10 and 12 learners in class every second Saturday, getting extra help in maths, languages and other subjects from expert tutors. And we have already trained 5300 teachers from various grades, giving them new tools and strategies to help their learners achieve the best results they possibly can.
The good news is that our latest systemic test results show we are turning the tide against learning losses – something that education experts predicted would take a decade to do.
It is also vital that we expand access to education in our province to accommodate the extra 19000 new learners seeking a place in our schools each year. And that means building new schools and hiring new teachers as quickly as possible.
While other provinces fail to spend their infrastructure grants, the DA-run Western Cape is spending 100% of its infrastructure budget, and receiving extra funding taken back from provinces who cannot deliver.
Our innovative Rapid School Build project is building schools in as little as 71 days, as has been the case at Fisherhaven Academy. Even the National Treasury is backing our Rapid School Build, making an extra provisional allocation to the programme of R2.5 billion over the next three years to help us build the schools we need to keep up with the demand for school places in poor communities.
It is often said a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Our national government does not fully include learners in special schools in their allocation of provincial funding. So it falls to us as the Western Cape Government to use our own funding to ensure all learners with special education needs can access quality education.
This year, we have completed two new schools for learners with special needs, as well as expanded the number of classrooms at our existing special needs schools, for our most vulnerable learners this year.
The choice that voters have this year is between the bold education innovations that the DA delivers, or the failing “business-as-usual” approach of other parties that compromise the quality of education our children receive.
#BackOnTrack and the Rapid School Build have proved to be game-changing programmes for our children, and demonstrate exactly what we mean when we say that the DA has a plan to rescue South Africa.
* Winde is the DA Western Cape Premier candidate
Cape Times