The Independent Democrats (ID) on Sunday described a move by the education department to force school governing bodies to take responsibility for poor performance as ”deplorable”.
”The ID finds it deplorable that the education department wants to shift responsibility for learner performance onto the shoulders of school governing bodies,” said the party’s education spokesperson, Lance Greyling.
”Ultimately the buck stops with the education department and the minister and she should do her job.”
Greyling was responding to reported changes to the Schools Act published in the Government Gazette this week, allowing provincial education departments to give these parent bodies written warnings and fire them if results were unacceptably low.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said the proposed legislation was not aimed at parents.
The amendments have been widely criticised as a move to ”pass the buck”.
Teacher unions and school governing bodies have warned that parents were not necessarily equipped to monitor school results.
”People who sit on school governing bodies are not trained to assess learner performance or identify accurately the reasons for underperformance,” said Greyling.
He said the government should improve the functioning of its district officers to ensure that obstacles to learning are remedied. – Sapa