Pretoria - The Gauteng Department of Education has called on parents and guardians to participate in the third-largest elections to fill over 30 000 School Governing Bodies (SGBs) memberships throughout the province.
SGBs are tasked with ensuring the smooth running of schools and have powers to decide on school policies such as language of instruction, discipline and religious policies. They are also responsible for school fees, school budget, financial policies and fundraising.
Launching the SGB elections on Sunday at Tshwane South College, Gauteng Education MEC, Barbara Creecy said discipline among learners required the support of both parents and educators with parents having the primary responsibility for maintaining discipline among learners.
"This includes making sure that children leave home early enough to be on time at school, parents, as part of SGBs also address some of the more difficult disciplinary cases that are outside the domain of educators," Creecy noted.
Being an SGB member is voluntary and there is no remuneration, it is a three year commitment where a member would need to attend at least four meetings per year.
Members of SGBs include parents or guardians, educators, learners in Grade 8 or higher, staff members who are not educators and co-opted community members, to ensure that everyone has a role to play in decisions taken about the whole schooling collective. Principals are automatic members of SGBs.
Over the next few weeks, schools will invite parents or guardians to attend two meetings which should take place no less than 24 hours of each other.
The first meeting is to nominate candidates and the second meeting is where the voting will take place.
"We will hold izimbizo in each of the 15 districts to explain to parents how these elections work and how they can nominate or be nominated as candidates," Creecy said.
Creecy announced that the department has scheduled training after the elections for SGBs in all aspects of governance, policy development and implementation, budgeting and financial management.
