Former pupil encourages hard work

The Gauteng MEC for Education, Ms Barbara Creecy, visited Ponelopele Secondary in Ivory Park to motivate the matric class of 2014.

Gauteng’s top 2013 matriculant, Praise Ndebele who passed his matric at the same school, accompanied Ms Creecy to the school.

The MEC congratulated the pupils for attending extra classes during the April school holidays. She assured the pupils that their sacrifices now would be rewarded when the matric results are announced in January next year.

“I know no one wants to give up their holidays and attend extra classes,” said the MEC. “I also know that pupils who do well and who achieve a university pass, and even succeed in getting a bursary, are pupils who attend SSIP classes on a regular basis. In fact, I will go so far as to say that if you attend each and every SSIP class, I can guarantee that you will pass matric,” said Ms Creecy.

Ms Creecy also stressed that there is no substitute for hard work. In order to get good results at the end of the year, the work has to start now. She pointed out that putting in the effort early will mean less pressure in October when pupils prepare to write their final examinations.

Now in its fifth year of implementation, the SSIP has become an important element of improving the quality of education in Gauteng’s schools. By providing support to teachers and school managers to ensure better curriculum delivery during the school week, as well as supplementary tuition on weekends and school holidays, the SSIP has helped 435 priority schools to achieve the provincial benchmarks.

“SSIP schools have shown an average performance increase of 15 percent since 2009 and the gap in performance between fee paying and no fee schools has narrowed from 24 percent in 2009 to nine percent in 2013,” said Ms Creecy.

“Today, the number of public schools achieving an pass rate of less than 60 percent has dropped from 188 in 2009 to 19 in 2013.”

She also noted that in 2009, the Gauteng pass rate was 71.8 percent, which rose to 87 percent in 2013.

“The SSIP will be especially important in 2014 to help us mitigate the risks posed by the fact that this year Gauteng matriculants will write the National Senior Certificate examinations based on CAPS for the first time,” said Ms Creecy.

“Through the programme, teachers will receive additional training to ensure they are confident to deliver the new curriculum. We have also ensured that pupil study notes and the extra classes are aligned to the CAPS curriculum.”

Extra classes for the 2014 matrics will be held every Saturday. Programmes will also run during the June holidays as well as the September vacation.

The subjects targeted are maths, maths literacy, physical science, life sciences, accounting, English first additional language, economics, business studies, history and geography.

Praise Ndebele, the 2013 top pupil for Gauteng who is currently studying a Bachelor of Commerce in financial accounting at the University of Cape Town, also attended the event.

He gave a motivating talk to the pupils at his former school.

“You have reached an important milestone in your life, and may seem tough right now, but it is well worth the hard work,” he said.