Staff Reporter
The long-running social problems such as water shortages that gripped Thabo Mofutsanyana district over the greater part of last year could have contributed to the drop in the pass rate recorded by the class of 2021 in the area, Education MEC Tate Makgoe has said.
Usually one of the best districts in the Free State, Thabo Mofutsanyana recorded the lowest pass rate in the province after it achieved 82.5 percent following a drop of 3.3 percentage points from the previous year.
“I think what probably went wrong is that there have been a lot of social problems in Thabo Mofutsanyana,” said Makgoe in response to a question from The Free Stater during a media briefing on Friday.
“Remember there was a time when there was no water for a very long time.
“So, I just suspect that some of those social issues could have affected them (learners) because these kids that you see from Thabo Mofutsanyana come from schools in very poor areas,” he added, referring to learners from the district who were at the provincial ‘Well Done’ function for the announcement matric results for the province.
Some parts of the district were shut down on several occasions as people protested against poor service delivery.
“Many of them don’t come from hostels. They walk to school. So, if there is a disruption of water supply, you can understand what happens. It became national news last year that there were quite a number of social issues,” he said.
Makgoe was however reluctant to point to the November 2021 local government elections as another possible factor but stated that the area was heavily contested by different political parties which might have affected schools in the district.
The MEC promised to engage education authorities and teachers in the area to have a better understanding of what happened and find ways of addressing the challenges.
Makgoe said he wants the district to get back to the days of success and be part of the top 10 districts in the country.
He said when he was analysing the results, he found that several schools that traditionally performed well, particularly in QwaQwa, had gone down.
“We need to go back there and ask the teachers because they will tell us the truth about what happened,” said Makgoe.
“Schools in Maluti-a-Phofung municipality always give us above 90 percent.
“If you look at the results now, they are below 90 percent.
“We need to understand what went wrong, but I suspect some of the socio-economic issues that were beyond our control could have contributed to the decline.”
The other four districts in the Free State landed in the top 10 nationally.
Motheo, the best district in the province, achieved a pass rate of 87.9 percent, followed by Fezile Dabi with 87.5 percent, Lejweleputswa 85.6 percent and Xhariep 85.5 percent.
Makgoe attributed Xhariep’s jump from a pass rate of 80.8 percent in 2020 to 85.5 percent last year to a major shift in the recruitment of both senior staff and teachers.
“One of the key issues about education is to attract the best,” he said.
“You will realise that Xhariep used to have instability because the district director was somebody from somewhere else, and the teachers also came from somewhere else.
“So, we then started by making sure that we appoint a district director who comes from Xhariep . . .
“We also went on a campaign in Xhariep giving bursaries to students to study teaching so that after completing they could go back home and teach.”
The MEC said three more technical schools will be opened in the district because the courses they offer are key to turning around the economy.