Education

My department has informed me of the following:

(a)    The WCED has a good working relationship with the National School Governing Body Association (NSGBA). 

(b)    (i)    The types of engagements include telephone calls, emails, and meetings. 

NASGB is on our official emailing list for meetings with School Governing Body Associations (SGBAs), which are chaired by the Head of Department (HoD). NASGB is invited to submit discussion points for these meetings. They are also invited to meetings with departmental officials where the SGBAs are consulted on policy matters, directives, regulations and circulars on Management and Governance issues. 

The schedule for the quarterly meetings with the HoD was sent to NASGB which indicates the dates for these meetings for the whole year. 

(ii)    The request to determine the number of correspondences between every department official and the organisation between 2018 and 2021 is unreasonable. We have, however, extracted information from the HoD’s office which indicates the following:

•    From 5 October 2020 to 19 August 2021, the office of the HOD sent 9 emails to the SGBAs where Mr Pieter Julies (the leader of the NSGBA in the province) was included, and received 5 responses from Mr Julies.
•    Mr Julies has attended 4 of the 5 meetings with the HoD since they joined in August 2020. 
•    Besides the agenda items, Mr Julies has not requested any other information from the office of the HoD. He does, however, engage at the district level on matters relating to schools in the district. 
•    We do not have records of the number of phone calls made and received. 

There is a standing arrangement that all the SGBA leaders must contact the relevant District Director or Head Office director to resolve any issues which the SGBA leaders might have.