The uMkhanyakude District Director, Thanduyise “TJ” Motha, shares how he transformed the worst-performing education district in the country to number one in KwaZulu-Natal and number three in South Africa. Picture: Supplied
Thirteen years ago, uMkhanyakude was the worst-performing education district in South Africa, but it has now become KwaZulu-Natal’s top-performing district for the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Class of 2024.
It was number 75 out of 75 districts in the country. But in 2024, it became number one in the province and ranked number three nationally.
One of its pupils, Owethu Shangase from John Wesley Kosi Bay Combined Private School, represented KwaZulu-Natal nationally and took the third spot during the Department of Basic Education’s announcement of the Class of 2024 Matric Results by Minister Siviwe Gwarube. Owethu was the minister’s guest, alongside 38 other top achievers.
During KwaZulu-Natal’s Class of 2024 top achievers’ awards on Tuesday at the Durban ICC, uMkhanyakude occupied five spots, and the pupils were from Mandla Mthethwa School of Excellence, Nkombose High School, Zimele Secondary School, Sinethezekile Combined School and Nodineka Secondary School. The remaining spots were shared amongst 11 districts.
The district is also number one in the province regarding the number of schools that passed and it produced the most bachelor passes in KZN (8 530), an impressive 55.10%.
Thanduyise Joseph “TJ” Motha, the uMkhanyakude district director, said the success took years of building and implementing systems.
“It has been a long journey, it didn’t start this year (Class of 2024); it has been happening over time. I want to indicate that when I got appointed to uMkhanyakude in 2011 my district was number last. It ranked last among the 75 districts in the country,” Motha said.
there was no district worse than mine in the country, he added.
“So, I started building a team in the district so that people would understand that we are capable and we can do things differently. I also focused on building confidence amongst the district team, the educators, and the people who are working in the district.
“What is important is not just building skills, but also building unity so that the strength of one educator can complement the strength of another, because if educators are not working as a team, then it defeats the entire process,” he said.
Following the processes of building unity and confidence amongst others, there was a change.
“The district has been moving slowly from position 12 in the province, 12 out of 12. We became number 11 and became number 10. We have been moving slowly. When we became number one last year, we had been number two the previous year, and we were number three, three times. We were number four once. So, the district has been moving up and up.”
Motha noted that many people get discouraged very easily. They think one can build results over two or three years, when in fact building results is a long process.
If you look at developed countries, no country that becomes developed over two or five years, it takes a longer period, he said.
“While interventions are important, you also need to develop a long-term strategy. If you don’t develop a long-term strategy, you will move up this year and then move down the following year.
“If you develop capacity and confidence, you are ensuring that good performance is sustained over years, hence we have been moving step by step. When we reached 80% as a district, it took us three years to cross from 80% to 86%, so, it has been a long journey,” stated Motha.
He remarked that being in a rural district is not easy, “first and foremost, you need to make educators and officials love the district because if they don’t, you will recruit them this year and they will leave. And there is nothing you can do about it because the Constitution gives everyone rights to be transferred and so on. So, you can’t forcefully cause them to stay in the district.”
He said the high resignations and transfers have been a serious problem especially when it comes to attracting skilled and experienced teachers in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects to a rural district.
Even during the times of incentives introduced by the Department of Basic Education, to help attract skills, it was unsustainable to pay those high incentives from the department’s side.
“There was a time when I was lamenting a lot, talking about the high rate of transfers, high rate of resignations, and high rates of this and that. And I spoke to educators, I spoke to officials who were moving in their numbers from my district to urban districts until I realised that it is not a strategy to stop them.
“The strategy is to model. I just needed to show them how to love the district so that they could follow. You see, preaching and doing are two different things. If you do it, the people will just follow, and that is what distinguishes a leader from a manager. Leaders do and managers talk about it,” Motha stated.
So, what they need to do was to ensure that they produce patriotic citizens, who will love their country no matter where they are placed, he said.
“I had all the opportunities to run the districts in the metro, but because I love the Republic of South Africa, I agreed to be placed in the most rural and underperforming district. We need to develop more and more people like that who are going to make an impact.
“My belief has always been - if you are dedicated, committed to the people, and love your country, you can work anywhere and make an impact. And we have proved that poverty is not an issue, rurality is not an issue, distances are not an issue, the people can perform.
“Being poor doesn’t affect your intelligence. if you are properly motivated, no matter where you are, you will always be able to produce good results. And that is what we are doing,” Motha said.
He added that there is a need to educate communities not to expect quick successes.
“At times, pressure from communities, seniors and so on will make you commit a lot of mistakes. People must know that if you want to have good quality education, you need to invest it over time and you need to develop strategies that will sustain it and ensure that everything is done and is perfect.”
gcwalisile.khanyile@inl.co.za