When learners are motivated in any shape or form to remain at school, their results elite as well. This is why the Eastern department of Education’s MEC Fundile Gade and the department’s social partner Jenn Trading supported four schools in this past week with much needed food parcels, school uniform and stationery.
Gade accompanied by Jenn Trading visited four schools this past week in the OR Tambo and Amatole East Districts.
Masixole Madubela, South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) representative appreciated the MEC’s visibility in the Eastern Cape by saying, “through the MEC, learners can be anything that they wish to be in life.”
Madubela pleaded with the MEC to also take care of teachers in rural areas, “for an example Xhora is one of the marginalized areas with schools that do not have rural incentives."
Teachers are moving away from these rural areas thus affecting the pass rate of the learners, MEC should please look at bringing back rural incentives for teachers,” said Madubela.
School Governing Body Chairperson at Xhora Mouth Senior Secondary School, Thembeka Bless also expressed joy at the MEC’s presence as it means he could see first-hand the conditions of not only the school but the village as well.
Bless said, “We are uneducated as parents, we have nothing. The school is full to its capacity because we want our children to be better than us. But there’s no electricity here, the crime rate is too high and we fear that our children are not safe when going to school and coming back home.”
Bless thanked the department and Jenn Trading for their contribution which is a dire need in the poverty-stricken areas visited.
“The communities are thankful for the food parcels, school uniform and stationery, but we’ll be left hungry for a newly built school after this,” concluded Bless.
Working together with sister departments is what the Eastern Cape Department of Education (ECDoE) is always striving for as Social Development Department passed by to drop off sanitary parcels at one of the schools as well. Leaving 40 boxes so that every girl child would not miss a day at school.
Nandipha Dubula said, “Each girl child would receive a packet every month for the next 12 months.”
Heading the ECDoE as the MEC, Fundile Gade expressed concerns at the conditions of the places he has been visiting.
“Looking at the concerns of the communities, my department and I need to come back to the communities and work closely with traditional leaders and see how best we can go to the basics of being Africans. Teaching and learning should not only be at schools but in communities as well so that we shape in a certain manner,” said Gade.
He also explained how he plans to involve sister departments when embarking on projects such as building schools saying, “As the MEC I took notice of how teachers need to teach in a way that is conducive in the outside world.
And so, when building schools, a thorough study needs to be done involving social development, Health and other departments.”
Gade thanked the contribution of Jenn Trading across the province through Education.
“In heeding the call on trying to improve the lives of the learners and families across the province of the Eastern Cape, my sincere gratitude goes to Jenn Trading because a school is not only walls but it needs to respond to socio economic needs as well so that families can be stabilized and in the end, we have stable schools,” concluded Gade.
The MEC visited four school namely Xhora Mouth Senior Secondary School, Kambi Junior Secondary School, Colosa Junior Secondary School and Thanga Senior Secondary School where he schooled in his youth.
MEC Gade personally donated an amount of R10 000 to Kambi learners where a former learner Mawethu Rhume celebrated his birthday by donating to the learners at the school.