Spotlight on provincial education HR management

During a special meeting held on Thursday, 22 March 2012, which the Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga attended, the council agreed that there was an urgent need to scrutinise how human resource management was conducted in provincial education departments to ensure that the curriculum was sufficiently covered to enhance and improve the quality of education.

It was also agreed that the PERSAL system would be cleaned up to confirm who was employed by the Department of Basic Education, where these individuals are located and what subjects they offer. This would also boost efforts to improve record keeping.

The council further confirmed its support of increased teacher accountability through teacher attendance, learner attendance, and class period control registers, coupled with constant monitoring in order to support schools in the use of these accountability instruments.

On the issue of human resources, the council agreed that provincial heads of department should conduct an audit of learner and teacher numbers and finalise teacher profiles for departments to be able to efficiently utilise teachers in the system.

The council noted the Integrated School Health Programme, whose main objective is health screening.

"The programme will be multi-departmental and rolled out in all schools to eradicate key health barriers to learning. The progressive implementation of the programme will be done in collaboration with the Department of Health, Social Development and National Treasury," the council noted.