Basic Education Director-General, Mr Mathanzima Mweli, has officially concluded the second round of his provincial engagement programme in the North West Province on 05 September 2017 with more than 170 district and provincial officials in attendance. Since the start of the programme (early August 2017), officials in all provinces had an opportunity to share plans and strategies required to attain goals set out in the Action Plan to 2019: Towards the realisation of Schooling 2030. The Director-General’s engagements with provinces have challenged officials to review their strategies and plans so that they strengthen functionality and ensure that we maintain the trajectory of the “system on the rise”.

The engagements were intended to motivate the underperforming districts to improve their performance. Through this programme, light was shed on the practice that works whilst providing options for new approaches in dealing with factors that affect learner performance. One key observation from all the engagements is that provinces have made much progress in terms of preparing schools for effective administration of the 2017 National Senior Certificate (NSC) Examination.