Greetings to all our friends,

 

Summit a success

 

I am pleased to report that the 1st Annual BBEAG Education Summit held at the Bela-Bela Showgrounds was a great resounding success!

 

It surpassed our wildest expectations even with the bold predictions we made before the actual event. The level of participation by the delegates and the great atmosphere within which the Summit took place in was nothing short of a miracle. 

 

Opening Prayer

 

Pastor MP Monareng opened the Education Summit with a good prayer asking the heavens to give the delegates the wisdom needed to arrive at good solutions for the education question.

 

The good pastor then took his chair to declare the meeting officially opened.

 

Unexpected delays

 

The Summit was delayed by about an hour (10.30 instead of 09.30 due to catering hiccups) but the mood remained pregnant with expectations. Guests from all walks of life, including:

·         Principals of local schools

·         Official proxies

·         Parents

·         SGB chairperson

·         Municipality officials

·         Municipal Manager

·         Local politicians

·         Motivational Speakers

·         Parents

·         Friends and 

·         Multitudes of students dressed in full school uniforms

 

came to witness and bear testimony, to what before last week, was the first ever Education Summit organised and run by the youth of Bela-Bela. Our team went to great length to ensure that everyone was well looked after and that we had enough eats and water for everyone. Due to resource constraints bottled water was only given to the adults and the students helped themselves to clean, tap water (blue drop status, we were told).

 

Summit program

 

The program for the Summit had three session happening in a single day; starting at 10.30 till 18.00 hours on the same day. I compered the first session from 10.30 to 13.30 (lunch time).

 

BBEAG Team introduced

 

Our Project Manager Jim Lebese introduced the entire BBEAG project team after my initial Welcome Address. Names were matched to faces and an open-door policy was declared.

 

Vacation School Programme (VSP)vision & mission explained

 

Our head of VSP Michael Makhubela took the mike after Jim to speak of the mission and vision of the VSP and to urge the students to attend the easter VSP (started yesterday. over 180 students pitched) starting on Monday of the 29 March 2010. He also appealed to teachers, parents and learners to come together to defeat the underachievement experienced in the past.

 

Learners took the mic too

 

Soon after Michael finished his speech, learners where given an opportunity to entertain and speak to the delegates. A young male learner told a funny joke about animals and atchaar and had the whole hall in raptures. 

 

A female learner moved the whole hall close to tears when she narrated her story of how important education was to her after she had dropped out for a year.

 

Keynote Address 

 

Dr. SS Khumalo was the main speaker at the event and spoke passionately about the value of an educated society. Dr. Khumalo is a passionate believer in education and has a long list of education credits to his name and has written a book about the state of education in our town. The book is touted for an April 2010 release.

 

The good doctor is from Bela-Bela too.

 

The Inside Story

 

One of our local high school principals shared the challenges on the current education system as well as factors that dogs education in our town.

 

Mr. FS Sithole was frank in his report and his hopes for the future. He vowed to work with the BBEAG to help us overturn the epidemic.

 

Plenaries on Education Improvement

 

After lunch, the delegates broke into plenary streams to look at various facets of education as well as ways in which the matters could be improved. Delegates took about half an hour to deliberate on this and then nominated speakers to do a report back to the larger group, with a Q&A session after the report.

 

Many nominees were from the schools and it gave everyone a sense of participation and greatly pleased the young learners present. They fervently participated and gained valuable experience on planning and public speaking.

 

Motivational Session

 

Mrs Ngoetjane was on hand to deliver a very detailed speech on how parents and learners can engage each other in order to build a positive image of their children and position them for success.

 

All and sundry were inspired by the speech and asked questions accordingly.

 

Municipal Manager speech

 

The Municipal Manager, Mr. Bambo, gave us his impressions of the event and spoke passionately about his willingness and keenness to help the BBEAG achieve its mission of improving matric results from 0% to 75% across the board in 5 years!

 

2010 - The Education Action Plan (TEAP) 

 

An action plan to improve education based on the findings and recommendations of the plenary sessions was read out to the delegates  by Michael Makhubela (head of VSP) to remind the delegates of our pledge for the 2010 academic year.

 

This document would be our guide and focus on actions and programmes for the current education year.

 

Vote of Thanks

 

Lebohang Monareng thanked our sponsors & friends:

·         Bela-Bela Municipality

·         Pitso Tsibolane

·         Puleng Lephondo

·         Danabel Foods

·         Living Word Ministries

·         Learners & their leadership

·         Distinguished Guests

·         Dr. Khumalo

·         School Reps & Managers

·         Friends

·         Parents

·         SGB

·         Spyti.k

·         Madmom

·         Joanne Hart

·         Tannemys

·         Butana Mabunda &

·         The catering company

 

Summit End

 

The good pastor closed the session with another good prayer.

 

"The time is always right to do what is right" - Martin Luther King