Battling the odds
... but John Noah promises better results
JOHN Noah High School principal Samkelo Maka has blamed socio-economic factors – including absenteeism, a lack of parental support and teen pregnancies – as the reasons for the school’s poor 2015 matric results.
The school’s pass rate plummeted from 63.5 % in 2014 to 38.8% last year.
Maka, speaking during a visit by the Eastern Cape Education Legislature Committee portfolio’s visit to the worst performing schools in the province on Friday, listed several ills, including substance abuse, gangsterism, violence, bullying and theft as some of the problems facing the school.
“It kills us when we call parents and they do not come.
“When we go to the homes of the pupils we see the realities of their living conditions. Sometimes children complain that parents are always drunk, they beat each other, they always fight.”
Maka said that the drop in the pass rate had been “a severe blow” for the school but that they remained optimistic for the future.
More needed to be done to reach a 70% pass rate, especially in mathematics and physical sciences.
He said absent educators and vacancies which were not filled added to the school’s woes. Chairperson of the committee and MPL Nomawethu Gqiba said laziness among the teachers was a contributing factor.
“How can you have a teacher who only has 11 children to teach, and out of those children seven fail?”
Deputy principal Yvette Kleinsmith, who has been with the school for 23 years, said teachers were doing their best. “Although the results are not good, we must never think it is because of the educators.
“We are sitting with learn- ers who can not even write a Xhosa sentence which is their home language.
“When you go and visit the homes of some of the children, you will find that they are living with two younger siblings who depend on government grants for a living.”
Language teacher Madoda Mdembe said some matric pupils were not ready for Grade 12.
“Pupils use a lot of dagga. By the time a pupil arrives at the school, they are already intoxicated.”
Acting district manager of the education department Daan Jonker said 25 schools in the district were under-performing.
Eleven of those schools had a high number of enrolments with a pass rate below 60%.
The district was busy with an intervention strategy with the provincial department of education to help alleviate the pressure at affected schools.