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High school student out of class.
The Northern Cape Department of Education says it has assembled a task team to probe the reasons behind the high dropout rate of school learners.
In the first quarter of the year, over 4 000 learners dropped out of schools in the province.
Officials say the learners were still in the system last December but failed to return, with some falling off the system in the first few months of the year.
Education MEC Abraham Vosloo says these numbers are mostly for learners in Grades 8, 9 and 10. An investigation has now been launched to determine why these learners have dropped out.
“We can confirm that number. We can also confirm that as a department, we have embarked on measures to get the full details as to what informs that number, why so many learners drop out. We have put a team together to investigate and work with the data at hand, engage schools, the community, school governing bodies, and parents’ committees over learner dropout rates, teacher absenteeism rates and teachers’ welfare.”
Efforts to find the missing learners were announced during the provincial launch of the digital e-recruitment system called GovRecruit.
The system’s objective is to fill current vacancies for teachers.
The MEC says, despite the province not having a very high vacancy rate of teachers, they remain in need of teachers for Mathematics. This has led to some 18 high schools in the province failing to provide the subject of pure Maths. An improvement from the past few years, where 40 schools did not offer pure Maths.
“Maths and science, those are the critical subjects and other stem subjects specific reference to maths, pure maths, there is about eighteen schools in the province where learners are not taking maths but i don’t want to say learners are not taking maths up, i’m saying its rather be a shortage of skilled, qualified teachers in the maths and science space,” Vosloo explains.
The department says it’s engaging with the Sol Plaatje University and hoping to recruit students — who are currently studying Education and majoring in STEM subjects to close the gap in the province.
Meanwhile, in launching the online e-recruitment system for teachers, Northern Cape Premier, Dr Zamani Saul, hailed it as a great digital advance that also assists in vetting processes — which flag those listed in the South African Child Protection Register.
