Poor school for poor kids has 100% matric pass rate

With the same, and even more resource constraints as other schools, with probably teachers who mostly have received the dreaded Bantu Education (my source of learning in my formative years), truly, this school has shattered the myths.



All school Principals should be sent to this school, to learn what education management is all about. SADTU leadership should also go there, and create a learning environment for their members in the Port Elizabeth area.



We are letting our children down, by poorly managing their learning processes.

Amplify’d from www.timeslive.co.za

Ethembeni breaks the mould

Poor school for poor kids has 100% matric pass rate

Feb 10, 2010 10:01 PM | By Jonathan Jansen

Jonathan Jansen: I simply did not believe the principal when she made the announcement: "For the past 12 years, no child in this school has failed matric."

I would not readily believe that kind of claim from any top-notch school in the country; I certainly found it difficult to believe at the Ethembeni Enrichment Centre, situated in a run-down area of Port Elizabeth.

Nothing in the school suggested that the children had a fair chance.

Jonathan Jansen

The school building was run-down and the classrooms were barely furnished. The driveway to the school was a rocky, narrow passage that you could exit only by reversing.

The school hall was packed with a few hundred eager faces, the children virtually sitting on top of one other on the floor.

Something was going on here that I did not see in some of the plush schools of Eastern Cape.

How did the teachers and the principal create this high-spirited learning environment? The answer was, as usual, disarmingly simple, and was reflected in what the school calls "non-negotiables", the specifics of which were pasted onto the walls:

Class attendance is compulsory; Students must be punctual; Students must complete all given homework; Students must keep the school grounds neat and tidy; and Parental involvement's essential. There you are. Nothing complex. Nothing requiring millions of rands. Nothing requiring years of research. And no hand-wringing nonsense about if children were taught in their indigenous tongue, academic results would improve.

"Our medium of instruction is English," says the school brochure, pure and simple.

"Ethembeni" means "place of hope". Read more at www.timeslive.co.za

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/eetq