Mpumalanga Finance MEC Mrs Y.N “Pinky” Phosa visits school
12 January 2011
Mpumalanga MEC for Finance, Yvonne (Pinky) Phosa today, Thursday, 13 January 2011, visited Hobo Secondary School in Cunning More, Bushbuckridge as part of the back to school campaign.
The campaign aims at monitoring state of readiness in schools.
Phosa has also visited Hoyo Hoyo Secondary in the Bushbuckridge area to monitor and ensure that teaching and learning starts on the first day of school.
She said an improvement by 8.9 per cent in the provincial 2010 Grade 12 results is therefore a tribute to the correctness of our thought and decision to realign the budget to ensure spending on key priorities.
“These results are also an acknowledgement of the level of sacrifices that the learners and educators have made towards a successful academic period during the extraordinary 2010 year for the country,” said MEC.
She further said the performance of Mpumalanga learners in the past year ensured that Mpumalanga is rated as the fourth most improved province in 2010.
While this school has managed to improve the pass rate by more than 16 percent compared to the same period during the last academic year, the 32.2 percent still fall short of expected and respectable performance outcome from any school, she added.
“These results could mean that there is something that the learners and educators know that they should do but did not do or did not dedicate sufficient energy and commitment to achieve it,” said Phosa.
Meanwhile, the Department said during the tabling of the 2010 Adjustment Appropriation Statement ahead of the school examination last November 2010, that R77 million was to be re-prioritized towards the funding of a 5-day recovery plan.
An amount of R34 million for the Matric Intervention Programme will be funded from existing savings in compensation of employees.
“This is a decision that we took, cognisant of the clarion call to manage for results,” said Phosa. “We needed to satisfy ourselves that through the investment that we attach to the recovery programme, eventually we will get value for public resources that are committed to this futuristic programme of delivery.”
The MEC also urged learners and Educators to commit on working as a team so they can improve their pass rate.
She said that the province has set a target to improve pass rate in all grades by 10 percent.
“This is a challenge that requires all child minders, parents, members of the school governing bodies, educators and learners to work together towards improving education outcomes,” she said.
For more information, contact:
Letshela Jonas on 013 766 4243 / 079 500 0154 or Joseph Mkhonto on 013 766 4162 / 082 627 1750
Issued by Communications, Department of Finance, Mpumalanga Provincial Government