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Riverside High School - the home of public speakers
 The Riverside High School in Vereeninging is producing top public speakers.
This year Millicent Katsane, a grade 11 learner at the school was crowned the Gauteng's winner of the Sowetan-Anglo-American Young Communicators Award competition. The 17-year-old, is following in the steps of Rorisang Thandekiso, the former learner at the same school, who in 2008 won the national finals of the competition. Katsane too is pinning her hopes on winning at the national finals that will be held in joahannesburg in July.
Under the guidance of her teacher Mathebula, the two are spending hours hard at work after school to prepare for the finals. “I feel very fortunate to be part of the competition at this final stage,” said the learner.
Last month Katsane outperformed 15 contenders during the provincial leg of the competition in Johannesburg. She showcased her excellent public speaking abilities as she delivered a speech titled “Life begins at 40.”
“It was a tense competition. It has proven to me that hard work always pays off. I thank my school, family and God for all the support,” said Katsane. She won a R1000 cash prize, an MP4 Player and a CNA store voucher. She has not yet decided what she will do with her prize money.
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New inspectorate for independent schools.
Gauteng Education MEC, Barbara Creecy, has established a new inspectorate to ensure regular and standardised inspections for independent schools in the province.
The MEC was updating the media at the GDE head office this week on the interim report from Marumofase Fivaz Security Solutions on the status of investigations into subsidies in some independent schools.
In October last year the GDE undertook a rapid assessment of all 205 subsidised schools for compliance with the conditions for subsidies. The audit was prompted by the alleged abuse of subsidies by owners of Ekukhanyeni schools in the Ramaphosa and Denver report to GDE who then appointed a law firm to investigate the allegations. This subsequently led to the arrest of owner Josias Mabaso and a GDE official.
“Based on the report, we reached a conclusion that Institutional Development and Support Officers (IDSOs) would be focusing more on state schools than independent schools because the things they would be looking at are not the same. The inspectorate for independent schools needs to be different from those working in public schools,” she said.
Creecy said that the responsibility for inspecting independent schools, previously carried out at district level by (IDSOs),would now be centralised.
Explaining the role of the IDSO, Creecy said IDSO's in public schools were responsible for monitoring curriculum roll out and many other things, where as the responsibility of IDSOs in independent schools was to only check compliance, ensuring that subsidies that are given are spent in relation to regulations.
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