Rustenberg – The Forum 4 Service Delivery (F4SD) on Thursday called for the sacking of Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, whom they blame for the high dropout rate of students in the North West province before they write matric.
"F4SD is really disappointed by minister's failure to show the urgency of addressing the drop out of matriculants in the country," said spokesperson Elias Mogoru. The forum also suggested that Motshekga be replaced by Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.
"Therefore F4SD says demote Ms Angie Motshekga to MEC and promote Mr Panyaza Lesufi to Minister of Education until 2019 when he will be handing over to a new coalition government," said Mogoru. He said the forum was not satisfied with the announcement of 86.2% pass rate for 2016 matriculants in the North West. The national matric pass rate is 72.5%, an increase of 1.8% from 70.7% in 2015.
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"We think our pupils can do better than that given the right leadership and proper support of our government," said Mogoru.
"F4SD has noted with great concern pertaining to more than 110,000 matriculants who dropped out in 2016, and calls on national government to urgently intervene in preventing such a high number of dropouts at matric."
The forum also called for the basic education department to be turned into an "independent body".