Panyaza Lesufi paid a visit to matriculants attending the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP) to motivate them.
The four schools (Kliptown, Klipspruit, Missouri and Eldomaine Secondary Schools) make up the 679 pupils attending SSIP at Kliptown Senior Secondary.
“People came to Johannesburg for gold but now there isn’t any gold left.
“The future gold is you,” Lesufi told pupils.
He told them that he is proud of pupils who take their careers seriously.
Lesufi aims to keep Gauteng as the top performing province by introducing tablets for all pupils and laptops for teachers with an interactive board.
“Gone are the days where you will have to go out of the classroom to clean a board duster,” said Lesufi.
Once rolled out, pupils will be able to send their assignments via email to teachers and get immediate results and corrections on tests.
He said pupils should aim to compare their results with schools from the UK, Russia or America.
“I want you to compete with the best in the world, you must be the best when compared with pupils in Russia,” Lesufi said.
He encouraged pupils to dream big and perform well in class.
“I don’t want to see you standing in a queue for social grants or RDP houses.
“I want to equip you mentally so that you can buy your own house,” Lesufi said.
Pupils will attend SSIP classes for the rest of the week.
They will also attend an intensive winter programme during the June/July holidays where tutors and teachers will focus on the entire syllabus.
Military style camps have been arranged for pupils in September where they will be away from home for a few days going over past exam papers.
“We have a team or experts who went through exam papers from last year and found the most common mistakes.
“Pupils will be taught how to answer exam questions and learn from mistakes of previous exams,” Lesufi said.
He is determined to keep Gauteng in first place and widen the gap between first and second position.
