BLOEMFONTEIN – The Free State Department of Education is forging ahead with its commitment to systemic reform of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). This is being done in the wake of an announcement by the MEC for Education, Dr Julia Maboya, during the 2025 matric Well-Done Function in January.
According to Maboya, early learning and foundational literacy and numeracy programmes are positioned as non-negotiable pillars for sustainable improvement across the system. She said part of the strategy would involve training practitioners in the early childhood development (ECD) centres and teacher development programmes to be better equipped to focus on curriculum mastery, subject knowledge, diagnostic teaching, and differentiated instruction that responds to learner needs.
“Our view is that education must become an engine of economic inclusion, not merely a gatekeeper of credentials. It is for this reason that we have developed a five-year plan to diversify our schools with a bias towards an increase in the number of technical schools, agricultural schools, arts schools, and high-tech schools offering coding, robotics and drone flying as an extracurricular activity,” said Maboya.
She said the department had resolved to focus on the following priorities:
■ Curriculum delivery across all grades will place emphasis on depth over coverage; understanding over memorisation; and application over recall; while assessment practices will be strengthened to better evaluate reasoning, problem-solving, and conceptual clarity.
■ Districts will be strengthened as engines of instructional leadership, with a stronger focus on early intervention and more strategic use of learner performance data to guide support.
■ Accountability and consequence management systems will be reinforced through improved monitoring and evaluation, regular feedback on programme implementation; in addition to strengthened school-based assessment processes to track impact and progress.
■ A whole-school approach, combined with targeted interventions, will be implemented to support and turn around underperforming schools and their feeder primary schools.
■ An intensified programme will be run to deliver high-quality, inclusive education that is responsive to the needs of the economy, including expanding access to and participation in critical gateway subjects.
