Brits - Two disadvantaged schools that produced top marks in the 2008 matric examinations have recommitted themselves to maintain the high standard they have set and improve on what they achieved last year.
The two schools, Bothlabelo High School from Brits and Malatse-Motsepe High School in Garankuwa are situated in an informal settlement with the majority of learners coming from poor backgrounds.
The schools were visited by Deputy Education Minister Advocate Andre Gaum on Thursday, following the re-opening of inland schools, to check on what assistance they required from the department and to discuss their good matric results.
Bothlabelo High School has been consistently improving its matric results from 45 percent in 2005 to 63 percent in 2006, 73 percent in 2007 and 87 percent in 2008.
Deputy Minister Gaum told BuaNews he was impressed about the schools performance given their surrounding and the number of learners who came from poor families.
"We have to make sure that we put more support to human resources, which are the teachers by putting additional training for every one to make sure that they have the necessary education skills required," Mr Gaum said.
He also reiterated Education Minister Naledi Pandor's warning to remove the management of schools, which were consistently underperforming.
"We are not shying away from under performing schools, the department will intervene and take drastic measures, for schools to improve their performance, they need good management and good leadership," Mr Gaum told BuaNews.
Bothlabelo's school principal Thomas Kgabo Semenya said the school's success was due to good relations with neighbouring schools as they liaised constantly with each other incorporating ideas on how to work better.
He said they also had bi-monthly meetings with parents to engage them on their learner's progress and how to better their results.
"We also invite outside teachers specialising in specific subjects especially maths and science to spend a day in the class teaching our learners," he told BuaNews.
The principal further said the school approaches subject advisors to check on the standard of the test papers they set for learners to ensure they are set accordingly.
"We also ask for advice from the advisors and we further challenge neighbouring schools to compete with our learners in debates, which has seen a significant improvement among students' results," Mr Semenya said.
On the first day of school, Wednesday, Mr Semenya said teachers were ready to start work as the stationery and textbooks were all in place.
He said this year the school was determined to sustain the good results achieved and reach a 100 percent matric pass rate.
The Malatse-Motsepe High School also did well during to the 2008 matric exams by achieving an 83 percent pass rate.
School principal Jacob Phiri told BuaNews that teachers were also determined to push their students this year to obtain a 100 percent matric pass rate.
The school has also approached universities to assist them to mentor maths and science teachers to ensure that the students were well informed.
"We have met with the University of Pretoria asking them for their assistance and they promised to come and conduct experiments for science learners on a monthly basis and also mentor our maths and science teachers.
"As from next week we'll be doing maths and science tests for Grade 10 learners who come from our feeding schools (learners from surrounding schools) to identify the gaps and allocate the extra teachers we have to fill those gaps in order to prepare them for Grade 12," Mr Phiri said.
He said this year, they will also start morning classes for Grade 12's and involve parents to commit themselves by ensuring that their children attend extra classes on Saturdays.
He attributed the school's improvement to the exemplary papers, textbooks and stationery distributed by the Department of Education, preliminary exams and extra lessons.
