Every opportunity for education success in KDM

Bend the tree while it is young so it will not stray from its path.

The low matric pass rate in recent years has caused great concern and the KwaDukuza municipality (KDM) have taken it upon themselves to change children’s lives at crèche level so that they will perform better throughout their schooling career through to matric.

“We have already built two crèches in wards 14 and 23 and are in the process of building two more,” said KDM mayor Ricardo Mthembu last week.

Mthembu said although education has never been KDM’s mandate and they do not have a big budget for it, they hoped to get support from the private sector to ensure the success of this early child support programme.

Mayor Mthembu went on to say that they were also involved in supporting the youth at school and tertiary level.

“We have identified a struggle to get uniforms in January and that is why we distribute uniforms to poor schools, helping about 15 pupils per school in this way.”

He said KDM was also in the fifth year of its bursary programme, enabling poor but deserving KDM youth to study further in certain fields.

Mthembu said bursaries were awarded to students in specific fields of study where there was a lack of skills within the municipality, including engineering, commerce and environmental management.

He said skills shortage caused a lot of unemployment because it was difficult to employ people who are not skilled.

“We are teaching people to fish. If people are taught skills to survive, they cannot say they are going hungry.”

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