The provincial engagement with the Free State Province was chaired by Ms Simoné Geyer, DDG for Delivery and Support. Reflecting on the series of engagements, she said that, “This is our last online engagement ahead of the final examinations. As usual, these online sessions were insightful, providing examples of best practice and highlighting areas for improvement by means of learner support. As the best performing province, I wish you all of the best during the NSC examinations and I hope that you will be able to maintain your top spot as best performing province”.
Mr Tsatsi Montso addressed attendees and led the presentations on behalf of the HoD, Mr Tsoarelo Malakoane, who mentioned that the province had been working hard across all five districts to prioritise Foundation Phase education for enhanced performance.
DG Mweli joined the conversations later during the afternoon session, complimenting the province on their comprehensive and detailed presentations. To be able to anticipate performance, it must be juxtaposed against the previous years’ performance, to track and measure continuous improved performance.
During the presentations on the Learner Performance Tracking, it became clear that, like with most other provinces, Physical Sciences and Mathematics were not performing as expected, and home languages required attention. The Free State Reading Strategy was revised in 2023 and aligned to the DBE Reading Strategy. The Reading Plan advocacy was successfully communicated to key stakeholders, including Subject Advisors and relevant officials. In respect of MTbBE, Language profiling of the 2025 phase and Language mapping of officials, teachers, and learners are scheduled for 15 November 2024. Sessions with the Language Unit, and the Maths and Science Team for the finalisation of the roll out plan for 2025 will be taking place from 25 – 27 November 2024, along with the identification of schools that will implement MTbBE in 2025. Multilingualism and translanguaging is encouraged in all schools in the province during subject meetings. Across all phases in Secondary Schools learners are encouraged to use all their languages interchangeably. Translanguaging allows for a better comprehension by allowing learners to express concepts in the language they find most comfortable, promoting critical thinking.
Dr Janeli Kotze, Acting Director for ECD, congratulated the province on their excellent work on ECD and cited the province as an example of best practice, adding that the universal access, registration and monitoring are essential. The DBE had a briefing session with provincial and district officials on 27 September 2024, introducing the Bana Pele Mass Registration Drive to ensure the successful registration of ECD Programmes. The province has upskilled 200 practitioners towards NQF level 4 and trained 1,000 practitioners on the NCF and the Gender Responsive Pedagogy.
On Schools of Specialisation, the province reported that they have a total of 85 Focus Schools, and has been rolling out the Three Stream Model for Grades 8 and 9 in various vocational subjects. The province recently held its second Farmskills competition in Kroonstad from 28 - 30 August 2024 where various Agricultural schools offering Agricultural Technology competed in 13 skills. On the readiness for the 2025 academic year, the second transfer of school budgets is planned for November 2024, and the province will have a special run for the Learning and Teaching Support Material (LTSM) budget to schools in July 2025. The two special schools and one full-service school catering for the Blind, and partially sighted in the province, Thiboloha and Bartimea special schools and Heide full-service school, indicated that they have enough Braille and Large Print materials for 2025.
The engagements identified gaps to challenges as part of the Last Push and Learner Support Programme. The focus of the online engagements were on: Tracking Learner Performance in Terms 1, 2 and 3 across all grades; Internal and External Examinations and Assessment Readiness; ECD; Language and Literacy; Focus Schools and Schools of Specialisation; and the State of Readiness for the 2025 academic year. The DBE and provincial education departments are therefore confident that the necessary measures are in place to ensure an irregularity-free examination period, as well as a smooth start to the 2025 academic year.