Campaign hits out at Dept of Basic Education for not tackling high dropout rate

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has been challenged to set annual targets to reduce the school dropout rate.

While there was a dropout crisis in the country’s schools, the department has no reduction target plan, the Zero Dropout Campaign has said.

The campaign, a fairly new social project of the DG Murray Trust, made a presentation before Parliament’s basic education portfolio committee yesterday.

“DBE’s revised five-year strategic plan 2015/16-2019/20 mentions dropout, with an emphasis on keeping learners engaged up to Grade 9 (but there’s) no target identified for learner dropout,” said the campaign’s director, Merle Mansfield, in a presentation.

Read the full article on IOL