Ms Sharon Maasdorp, Eastern Cape Department of Education (ECDoE) HoD said that the engagement meeting of 13 October 2025, was hosted at an opportune time as the province was also hosting their provincial Strategic Planning Session this week. “Considering the importance of Foundational Learning, our focus will be on Language and Mathematics for the next five years, whilst addressing integration challenges across the system. We constantly learn from these engagements and appreciate the feedback from the DBE”.
Ms Chulekazi Bula led the presentations, which commenced with the tracking of Learner Performance per grade and per subject from Grades R to 12. The rolling out of the ECD Bana Pele has seen a significant increase in registration with 1,309 applications received. Thirty schools have updated school language policies in line with the South African Schools Act (SASA,1996) as amended by the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (BELA Act, 2024) and 78 Subject Advisors have been capacitated to support Grade 4 Mathematics and NS TECH for MTbBE implementation; however, Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana from the DBE advised that Language strategy should incorporate methodology and pedagogy for language vitality to permeate the entire system, especially since the province is leading best practice.
The submission for the HoD to approve the establishment of a Provincial Rural Education Committee (PREC) was in progress with the first quarterly meeting anticipated for November. The province indicated that they have established 18 agricultural schools, and five new focus schools are being established, with one aviation school to be piloted in Port Alfred.
Ms Mataole Ramohapi from the Office of the DG, expressed her concern that subjects such as Hospitality Studies, IT and certain technical subjects were not offered across districts as these were essential skills for the modern world, and the future economy of the province.
On the state of readiness for the NSC examinations, a total of 108,311 full-time and 13,719 part-time candidates will be writing at 1,086 examination centres. On the state of readiness for 2026, a total of 1,674,198 learners has been placed, and 497 newly qualified teachers have been employed and supported with the new teacher induction programme. To assist with learning and teaching in the classroom, 24,218 Education Assistants and 3,548 General School Assistants have been appointed as part of BEEI, phase V.
The engagement with the Eastern Cape Province, chaired by Dr Barney Mthembu, DDG for Curriculum Policy, Support and Monitoring, was attended by 320 online participants.