21 Oct 2024

Ministry of Education and Skills Development is in the process of introducing a new strategy to improve academic performance in schools dubbed ‘Learner Profiling’.

Speaking during the Training Manufacturing Construction Mining Expo 2024 in Mahalapye on Friday, Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe said learner profiling would inform a teacher about a learner. 

He said such information would include a learner’s skills, strengths, interests, background and potential barriers.

Also included, the minister stated, would be recommendations  of how best a learner should be assisted based on classification of data.

Dr Letsholathebe said now was the time to transform from traditional methods of learning-teaching to new ways.

He said the transition from an upper middle-income country to a high-income status could be achieved through using the power of vocational educational.

Furthermore, he said the ministry was implementing multiple pathways, adding that vocational training after basic education was not helpful hence the introduction of pre-vocational teaching in schools.

Minister Letsholathebe said woodcarving would be taught in schools and also learners would be accorded an opportunity to learn English for communication purposes to market their products.

Moreover, he said such learners would also have a platform to learn mathematics that would give them basic knowledge.

He said multiple pathways gave learners an opportunity to learn vocational education or choose their career path from grassroots level to as far as Masters Degree and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).

 Dr Letsholathebe said it was imperative to align vocational education with the demands of the market so as to benefit learners.

He said the ministry was in a mission of producing internationally recognised graduates. Ends