Brag Time Again!

Yes! The School Report Services web site has been updated again! This time we gave a lot of attention to the authentication an user administration. The new features of the site are as follows:

·         An entirely new look and feel.

·         A new leveled-subscription model. In other words, certain functionality is enabled depending on the type of subscription you choose. Currently there are only two levels – Individuals and Schools.

·         For international customers, we have included a new secure payment mechanism.

There will be more changes shortly, but these will be mostly transparent to the users of the site (unless of course we stuff up and bring the entire server crashing down … but we don’t think so).

It’s been a quiet month for blogging – not because of lack of interesting material, but rather because of updating our website.

January is usually a topsy-turvy month for schools anyway. They have to enroll more kids than they have capacity for, they have to teach from textbooks which still didn’t arrive, they have to withhold school reports from pupils who’s parents haven’t paid school fees (BTW: this probably wouldn’t have happened if the school was using our system), etc. etc.

This usually calms down after about a month – and as happens every year, life goes on.

 

Educators' Social Responsibility

A quarter of our population in South Africa are already unemployed.

 

To this will be added 176447 matriculants who failed their exams! 265673 matriculants did not pass well enough to get into university. 33 schools had a 0% matric pass rate! 106 schools had less than 20% pass rate!

 

The reality today is that a Senior Certificate on its own isn’t worth all that much in the job market. It’s a fact that about 50% of all unemployed people didn’t complete high school. Many unemployed people turn to crime, drugs and prostitution.

 

The Senior Certificate exam is just a reflection of what is happening in the lower standards. According to some educators, many of our matrics can’t read or write properly. We are of a lower standard than international norms, and fare worse than our neighboring countries. Basically, there are huge problems with our teaching system.

 

So, when there are problems with the system, this reflects in the students, and this in turn reflects in the unemployment and crime statistics.

 

I ask when will educators start taking ownership of the huge responsibility they have in improving the social ills of our country, and see their jobs as more than “just a job”?

 

Of course, there are solutions to these problems. I don’t have all the answers – but I do have one! Why not use an easy method of distributing pupil school reports to the ones that care most – the parents of the students. Every parent cares how their children do at school! They can encourage their children IF THEY KNOW. Check out www.SchoolReportServices to see how.

New Year! 2007

Gee, before we knew it, 2007 arrived.

 

With a BANG!

 

I see that Oprah Winfrey opened her new ultra-exclusive Leadership Academy for Girls as planned. She encouraged other businesses to get involved with improving education in South Africa. Well, we at School Report Services certainly do that!

 

Costs have gone up to get your kid educated. Woolworths have a good special on at the moment for school uniforms – but school fees are generally astronomical! The good news is that we at School Report Services have decided not to increase any of our charges. Our aim is to make our service as affordable as possible – and keep it that way.

 

Unfortunately, many pupils didn’t pass their Senior Certificate exam. This is going to put some pressure on our unemployment and crime stats (More on this in a later blog post). Maybe they would have passed if their schools had used our service throughout their school career. Why not check out our offering at www.SchoolReportServices.com.