The North West Department of Education has pleaded with independent schools that are not in compliance with the legislation or are not registered to begin doing so,to be able to receive support in incorporating Early Childhood Development Centers and implementing the 4IR.
The department said this during an address to 160 independent schools from across the province in Mahikeng on Thursday.
Institutional Development Services director at the department, Dr. Charity Majafi emphasised the need for all schools to register with Umalusi, the school accreditation body.
“We are having 160 independent schools both registered and unregistered. We want to say to them we want all independent schools to be registered so that they can be accredited. You will recall that Umalusi standards are such that they can only be accredited after they are registered according to the act.
“We are exploring a number of concerns, including whether independent schools are prepared to ensure that our early childhood learners are contributing to the system by implementing the 4IR skills now that ECDs have transitioned to basic education,” she said.
Owner of Study Express in Potchefstroom Martin Botha said the conference was a great opportunity and they were looking at the new integration of the ECDs as part of schools.
Curro Mahikeng principal Janita Maritz said she gave an insight on how the public schools can start implementing the 4IR.
“Coding and Robotics is a new thing for many public schools as well as independent schools and we as Curro have already implemented it long ago and we advised them on how to start robotics on the level where everybody can be part of it. it’s costly but there are other ways to start it,” she said.
The department said one of the objectives of the conference was to make sure that no learner from the North West will be left behind as they exit grade 12. The North West province acquired a 79,8 percent pass rate last year which was an improvement of 1,6 percent from the 2021 school year.
