When Ntomboxolo Mqumbisa was appointed principal two years ago, the pupils had no set uniform, would smoke dagga on school grounds and, at one point, even tried to burn the school down.
|||When Ntomboxolo Mqumbisa was appointed principal two years ago, the pupils had no set uniform, would smoke dagga on school grounds and, at one point, even tried to burn the school down.
Burdened with a matric pass rate of 45.5 percent in 2009, Matthew Goniwe Memorial High School in Khayelitsha was classified as an under-performing school.
And Mqumbisa had a mission to turn things around.
On Thursday, with an overall matric pass rate of 90 percent, she finally achieved it.
As one of the most improved schools in the province, Mqumbisa was congratulated by Education MEC Donald Grant when she received the results.
“Some people say (I am) too strict. I know I am. (But) I’m results-driven, so I had to tone it down a bit. I had to exercise compassion,” Mqumbisa said. She said that, when she took over, it was a “toyi-toyi situation”.
“They were erroneously passing pupils from Grade 11 to Grade 12. There were broken windows, the pupils had tried to burn down the school. So we had to sit down as staff and do some introspection,” she said.
“The pupils used to leave school if they forgot a book at home. I had to battle with teachers who wanted to leave at lunch, so I had to give a workshop on leave and absenteeism.
“(Now) if teachers don’t sign the register by 10am, I register them as absent.”
Mqumbisa also introduced initiatives encouraging pupils to opt for a combination of subjects that would enable them to pursue their respective diplomas or degrees.
She said several pupils were sought after by Stellenbosch University because they had to do maths and physics if they did agriculture as a subject.
“The way we combine the subjects, the pupils (will) go into well-paying jobs,” she said.
Mqumbisa said the school would analyse the results and project targets for 2012. “We’ll begin extra classes from the first day.”
Masiyile Secondary School in Khayelitsha was also among the most improved schools, managing to lift the matric pass rate from 34 percent in 2010 to 86.8 percent last year.
Equal Education, a movement of pupils, parents, teachers, community members and the Cape Times, launched the “library in every school” initiative in 2009 and Masiyile was one of the recipients.
Principal Sisa Sodlaka said the school had devised a programme of afternoon, weekend and holiday classes at the beginning of the matric year.
“(And) we had to institute discipline. The teachers were so committed,” Sodlaka said.
The school is one of several which have received libraries from Equal Education over the pasttwo years. - Cape Times
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