THE Gauteng education department will expand the Secondary School Improvement Plan (SSIP) to 51000 matriculants.

The matriculants are from 391 schools that achieved less than an 80percent pass rate in last year's matric exams.

MEC Barbara Creecy said: "We have expanded the number of SSIP sites throughout the province from 94 to 109 this year. Classes are held every Saturday and on school holidays.

"We have employed 1800 expert tutors to provide tuition to learners in Grade 12 in the following subjects: maths, maths literacy, accounting, physical science, life science, history and geography. We are also providing study material in economics, business studies and English first additional language as well as tuition in these subjects during the school holidays."

She said some of the tutors were from the database of retired teachers that the department created last March. The SSIP will incorporate self-study groups in the programme for the next three years and provide pupils with study material.

In addition, the department will offer tuition in maths, physical science and accounting for Grades 10 and 11 during school holidays.

"To ensure sustainability of the programme beyond the three years, we will this year train educators in SSIP schools. We will align and interface daily classroom work during the week and SSIP work on weekends," she said.

Creecy announced that 2011 was dubbed the year of the Foundation Phase Educator.

"We are continuing to implement our numeracy and literacy strategies with vigour in our 791 under-performing primary schools. A project team has been established to manage the implementation of the Gauteng Primary Literacy Strategy."

In January the department gave 6500 foundation phase educators literacy training and resources including workbooks.

Creecy said: "We will also provide numeracy training to educators so that learners in Grades 1, 2 and 3 receive a good grounding in reading and arithmetic. Library trolleys have been distributed to schools that have no libraries."