Soweto - While the situation in Soweto schools has vastly improved, with more stability and less school disruptions taking place, discipline remained a challenge in a number of them.
This emerged during the Soweto Learner Summit held on Tuesday at the University of Johannesburg's Soweto Campus.
The summit is a follow up to the Soweto Education Summit held last year in April, where various stakeholders including educator unions, political organisations, faith-based organisations, youth structures, SGB associations and the department adopted a declaration to protect the education of the African child in the township.
Other challenges schools faced included late coming, drugs and alcohol abuse as well as the matric pass rate.
This prompted stakeholders to hold a meeting in May 2012 to review progress of last year's summit. They resolved that the department needed to host a Learner Summit, where learners would have the opportunity to share their perspective on addressing these challenges.
Themed 'The future is in your hands', the summit gave learners a platform to express their concerns and engage the department and stakeholders on challenges they faced, what should be done to address them and how best they could work together with the department and stakeholders in developing a framework to turn around underperforming schools in the township.
A Grade 12 learner from Jabulani Technical High School, Hlalanathi Dlamini, who acknowledged the department for giving learners such opportunity, highlighted the use of cellphones during learning hours, both by teachers and learners; drugs and alcohol; teachers spending more time in the staff room instead of in the classroom teaching; as well as school principals failing to provide leadership.
"Schools are given a budget by the department but they still lack resources and performing learners are not being recognised. We want the department to enforce discipline and the code of conduct in schools, monitor teachers' attendance and open a discussion to improve the results," said Hlalanathi.
He also challenged learners to take responsibility for themselves, emphasising that the classrooms and libraries could change their lives.
Mercy Kok, representing the faith-based sector, noted that most of the youth didn't think long-term, and needed their parents' guidance and intervention.
"We [youth] have a vision about our future and it's for you parents and teachers to guide us," said Kok.
Gauteng Education MEC Barbara Creecy noted that since last year's summit, there had been major improvements in Soweto schools. This included union members not holding meetings during school hours; and the increase in the number of learners participating in the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP), which helped underperforming schools with extra classes.
However, Creecy noted that learners who were not doing well in their studies were not making use of the programme and challenged their peers to encourage them as it would help in their school performance.
"Discipline, late coming and substance abuse require a lot of work... We need to change in the discipline section and SGBs are now responsible for dealing with discipline [matters]. We will soon be launching a project, where senior management will go to the schools unannounced to monitor the issue of late coming," Creecy said.
Creecy also urged learners to help stakeholders to get the message across to other learners about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, gangsterism and bullying.
"We want you to have a dream for your own lives. Encourage those you work with in your organisations to help others get their dreams," Creecy told learners.
