Hendriks Kanise Combined School in Alicedale has proved to be a success despite the challenging circumstances — unemployment and lack of facilities — that face the local community.
Hendriks Kanise Combined School in Alicedale has proved to be a success despite the challenging circumstances — unemployment and lack of facilities — that face the local community.
When the matric exam results were released early this month, the school received a 90.5% pass rate compared to last year’s 80.9%. School principal Elaine Louw-Balie says the school, which has 460 new learners enrolled for this year, is doing “very well”.
She says the numbers are up partly due to the fact that “some learners who failed in Grahamstown register at the school and they pass.” Louw-Balie says that the school has a good relationship with the learners’ parents as they hold regular meetings with them to discuss their children’s progress.
However, with not enough job opportunities in Alicedale, she says that most learners live with their grandparents as their parents live out of town to seek proper jobs. This year the school has introduced tourism as an additional subject option.
Louw-Balie says they consulted with the learners before deciding on the tourism option, which is offered from Grade 10 to 12.
They are still waiting for the tourism textbooks to arrive, she says. Hendriks Kanise has 23 teachers who are “working very hard” according to Louw-Balie. She says the school, faces challenges in literacy and mathematics.
To deal with this, she says, the Department of Education has prepared workshops to help devise a strategy that will address the difficulties in these areas.
