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Unsupervised revision of study guides.

This is at the heart of the catch-up plan, which the DA has obtained, that Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s department has devised for Limpopo learners.

A copy of the plan is available here.

These learners are now six months behind their peers in other provinces as a result of the chaos in the province’s education system.

Despite this, Minister Motshekga’s department is suggesting that these children should be brought up to speed by reading study guides during the winter school holidays.

The Minister is placing sole responsibility for the education of these children in the hands of the children themselves.

This is a disgrace.

I will be sending a copy of the catch-up plan, and a letter detailing my concerns, to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, Hope Malgas.

I will use this to further push for the Minister to address an urgent meeting of the portfolio committee to explain her failure to meet the court’s requirements in terms of textbook delivery, and providing a suitable catch-up plan.

The Minister has already failed to comply with the court order to have all textbooks delivered to Limpopo learners by Friday 15 June. By not providing an appropriate catch-up plan she has again violated this order substantively, to the detriment of Limpopo learners.

And, given that many schools in Limpopo still lack textbooks, it is unlikely that the study materials the department is relying on will arrive in time.

The most serious problems with the catch-up plan, which was compiled by the department only after it was ordered to do so by the court, are as follows:

• It deals only with Grade 10 learners;
• the plan itself consists of only two paragraphs stating that learners will be provided with subject guides for self-study during the winter holiday; and
• it states there will be no face-to-face interaction between learners and teachers during the winter catch-up period, as teachers will be receiving training during that time.
• In addition, the curriculum comparison that accompanies the catch-up plan is intended to show that similarities between this and previous years’ curricula mean that previous years’ textbooks could have been used to teach learners this year.

The Minister is trying to show that, in the absence of new textbooks, Limpopo learners were not as disadvantaged as it seems.

This raises serious questions about why previous years’ books were dumped and burned, if the education department itself is now trying to argue that they were still of use.

The Minister has also failed to take into account that there are significant content changes between past and present curricula, especially in core courses such as mathematics and physical science.

Minister Motshekga has sought to place responsibility for the crisis in Limpopo at the door of the provincial administration. However, given that the national department is now in control, she is responsible for how this crisis is resolved.

It will take much more than study guides to get the learners of Limpopo back on track.