As most people and organisations are accustomed to doing at the beginning of the year, we in the Grocott’s Mail newsroom have been busy working out how to deal with the challenges ahead.
As most people and organisations are accustomed to doing at the beginning of the year, we in the Grocott’s Mail newsroom have been busy working out how to deal with the challenges ahead.
This year is going to be one of those that we all remember as turning points – something like 1976, 1990 or 1994. Almost everyone can recall important events from those years, but who can remember anything of national significance from 1977 or 1993?
We will all remember 2010 as the year Fifa took over our country, and we will no doubt remember the soccer celebrations and the floods of tourists (we hope) that boosted our economy. Some of us will also recall this as the year when the National Arts Festival gave us 15 days of Amaz!ng.
We have to try to plan for these major happenings – as well as Scifest, Highway Africa and several other annual events, but we want to go further than that.
Grocott’s Mail is planning to focus on ways of improving education in this municipality. We have been deeply disappointed by the recent matric exam results. "
It is shameful that Grahamstown identifies itself as an education town yet our schools recorded the biggest percentage pass rate drop in our already underperforming province.
Grahamstown schools are now two percentage points below the consistently declining national average. We want 2010 to be remembered as the year our education system turned the corner. This has to be the year when the rot stops.
As our small contribution towards achieving this goal, Grocott’s Mail will be raising awareness of the problem areas in education and will provide a platform for debate on how to tackle these areas.
We will publish articles about the education heroes and their successes, but we will also identify the villains who are too lazy to ensure a brighter future for our children.
If we do not all make a concerted effort to ensure that 2010 is the year we record a real improvement in education, we will be failing our future generations.
