Gauteng DA premier candidate Solly Msimanga has called for the department of education to use biometrics to protect learners.
Msimanga told Rekord that biometric security could be used to improve the vetting and assessment of teachers and ensure teachers were in class turning the fortunes of poorly performing schools around.
“If you go to certain schools, teachers arrive late or not at all. Now with a biometric system I am not only taking your fingerprints, but I am also going to do a background check on you,” Msimanga said.
“We have also had a number of scandals around Gauteng where teachers impregnate school children and the person is still allowed to teach.
“For me, that is morally wrong. Taking advantage of children that parents entrusted to you … we need to address these issues as a matter of urgency.”
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School infrastructure safety audits
While school safety has gripped the headlines in recent weeks, due to the Drie Hoek tragedy where learners lost their lives when a concrete block collapsed on them, Msimanga says schools should be audited.
“We don’t want to only to do an audit of teachers, but the actual schools themselves. In Gauteng, we have issues in terms of school infrastructure safety.
“Now we hear stories of buying laptops, smart boards and iPads but we are not taking care of the fundamental issues. How do we make sure that schools have proper ceiling boards, doors that close, windows, electricity that is not exposed, and protected parameters.
There must also be security to safeguard that equipment. Right now, there is an increase in budget to buy equipment such as IT but we are not talking about how to secure those things.
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“Now we are making our children vulnerable because criminal elements will know if they enter that school there’s close on 200 laptops, smart boards… those are just easy sitting targets.
“We are putting school children and teachers’ lives in danger.”
Take the pass rate back to 50%
Msimanga said Gauteng education was doing well in terms of producing a pass rate but “what we not doing is to drill deep into what happens to the other half that doesn’t make it to matric”.
“You have a million children that start school but you have less than 500 000 making it to grade 12.
“What happens to the ones in the middle? How do we then track and ensure that we have more learners coming out on the other side. This thing of 30% pass rate should be done away with and take it back to 50% and it can be done and should be done.”
Msimanga said introducing more technical schools in the province was vital.
“We need to introduce more technical or vocational schools. It’s not everyone who is academically inclined or wants to go and be a doctor.
“Some want to get skills in terms of how to do things practically and it’s a sad story that in Gauteng we don’t have many of those schools as we should be having to support learners that want to go that route.”
He said using technology to improve learning and teaching by rolling out online and digital learning platforms to under-resourced schools was the way to go, adding that more after-school programmes should be rolled out.
“We have piloted one in Bronkhorstspruit where we are assisting learners in different subjects. We want to roll this out throughout Gauteng.”
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