Basic Education Director-General, Mr Mathanzima Mweli, will be hosting his annual virtual engagement meetings with departmental, provincial and district officials during the month of October 2025 to ensure the state of readiness of provinces to host the 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations, and for provinces to be prepared for the 2026 academic year. These engagements will include Senior Managers; District Directors; Chief Education Specialists for Curriculum and Examinations; Curriculum Coordinators; General Education and Training (GET) and Further Education and Training (FET) Subject Advisors; and Circuit Managers.
The first engagement will be with the North West Province on 08 October and the meetings with all nine provinces will conclude with the Mpumalanga Province on 29 October 2025, to sustain the upward trajectory that the sector has demonstrated over the past few years. The engagements will identify gaps and address burning challenges.
DG Mweli hosts two sets of annual engagements with provinces and districts. The first phase of his engagements take place during the beginning of each academic year to contribute towards the implementation of programmes to improve learning outcomes across provinces. During these sessions, DBE officials present the topics drawn from various line functions informed by assessment data and other sources to gauge progress made in the sector and remind the audience about targets to be achieved in the new academic year. Provinces then play the role of the audience, whilst the DBE presents.
The second phase of the engagements are hosted during October, ahead of the NSC examinations, where provincial officials present on their identified key topics in driving the performance of the sector, whilst DBE officials contribute through comments and questions as the audience to provide support and leadership.
“I have personally engaged with and visited all 75 districts earlier this year leading up to the NSC examinations to ensure that Last Push activities were in place as part of our Learner Support Programme,” DG Mweli said. During these visits, he met with district officials and School Management Teams (SMTs) and motivated the Class of 2025 to remain focussed and committed to academic excellence during the upcoming examinations. Mr Mweli shared five golden nuggets with the Class of 2025 to encourage and motivate them to perform even better than the Class of 2024.
The focus of the online engagements will be on: Tracking Learner Performance in Terms 1, 2 and 3 across all grades; Internal and External Examinations and Assessment Readiness; Early Childhood Development; Foundational Learning; Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE); progress in respect of Focus Schools and Schools of Specialisation; the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI); Rural Education; Recruitment and Support to Newly Qualified Teachers; and the State of Readiness for the 2026 academic year.