By the end of 2021 it was evident that content was covered up to 100% for all the three grades and in accordance with the adjusted Annual Teaching Plans. It also proved to be the case that due to the national rotational schooling resolution as the country’s way to fight the spread of COVID19, the NextGen learners were at the most advantage when it came to curriculum coverage. Provision of lessons during the school holidays also came in handy and proven necessary for the success of the programme in 2021.
There is a pattern of good performance progression for Grades 10 and 12 across the subjects while Grade 11 shows a consistent trait of lesser performance between the baseline and final examinations on content subjects. EFAL’s performance for all grades is as expected and shows goo performance gains.
Learners by now have adjusted completely from the traditional face to face mode of teaching and learning to the fully virtual mode.
Since resumption of the programme (through the virtual approach), challenges which were experienced from the beginning have been dealt with. Learners have also familiarized themselves with the technology in the past year. Only a few issues such as poor or no internet coverage due to power outages are the examples of challenges experienced now. There is a perpetual non or poor attendance of classes among a few learners.
The programme promises to bear fruit at the end of the year. Although the approach is not face to face, continuing with the programme is assisting the learners so much since they attend school on rotational basis. Another issue to bear in mind is that although the annual teaching plans for grades 10 and 11 have been slightly trimmed, the learners will still need to have mastered both this year’s content and next year’s content at the end of 2021.
2021 Matric learners have so far been the best performing class historically since the start of the Nextgen programme. We look forward to their further success as they enter the higher education and training space to go further their studies