Hon Chair, let me also acknowledge hon members and colleagues, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Our country is on the verge of commemorating a very important national day, aptly called the Human Rights Day. We will indeed honour those who perished in the cause of an honourable struggle for our freedom. So yes, we honour the heroes and heroines of the Sharpeville and Langa massacres. We honour them in full knowledge that their, blood did nourish the tree of freedom as the young revolutionary Solomon Mahlangu so poetically put it.
Chairperson, because we are proud of our past and very confident of our collective future as South Africans, we will also celebrate our achievements, because indeed we have much to celebrate. Our country finally marks 25 years of a beautiful nascent democracy. Today's debate is celebrated under the theme, "Accelerated socioeconomic transformation - the key to human rights and better future for all."
So, Chair in the context of basic education which as we know that quality education is both a fundamental right for all and an essential enabler for the achievement of other rights such as a right to vote.
We must be cognisance of the fact that the greatest threat to modern democracies is not, the so-called, the axis of evil such as racist's right- wingers and religious zealots, but an uneducated populace. As Martin Luther King Jr said and I quote:
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
Chairperson, it therefore comes as no surprise that we are as a country, signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The declaration proclaimed the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being regardless of race, religion, gender, language, political opinion, national or social origin, birth or other status.
Article 26 of the declarations is about the right to education which reads and I quote:
Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
Education shall be directed to the full development of human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendships among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
In terms of section 29 of the 1996 Constitution, it says and I quote:
Everyone has the right to a basic education, including adult basic education; and to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible. These rights place a duty on the state to respect an individual's right to education. It also imposes a positive obligation on the state to promote and provide education by putting in place and maintaining an education system that is responsive to the needs of the country.
So, legal scholars and political pundits say the right to basic education, including adult basic education, unlike other socioeconomic rights in the Bill of Rights, is neither formulated as a right of access nor subject to internal qualifiers. The right to basic education is immediately realisable, as confirmed by the Constitutional Court in the Juma Musjid case.
This means unlike other socioeconomic rights where the sate need only demonstrated that it has allocated resources rationally, the right to basic education must be prioritised regardless of the state's other budgetary commitments.
Chairperson, as a sector we can proudly say that we have delivered in this regard. Some 80% of our learners attend no-fee schools. Over nine million of our learners receive nutritious meals every single school day. We have over 700 000 children accessing early childhood education in the last financial year. Hence we are very convinced that we have established a firm foundation for a comprehensive Early Childhood Development, ECD, programme that is an integral part of the education system as it migrates to basic education. So, we are ready to provide now a two year compulsory early childhood education to all learners in our country.
Over the next six years, we will provide every school child in South Africa with a digital workbook and textbook on a tablet device. We will start with those schools that have been historically most disadvantaged and are located in the poorest communities, including multigrade and multiphase, farm and rural schools. Already, 90% of textbooks in high enrolment subjects across all grades and all workbooks have already been digitised. [Applause.]
In line with our Framework for Skills for a Changing World, we are expanding the training of both educators and learners to respond to emerging technologies including the Internet of things, robotics and artificial intelligence. Several new technology subjects and
specialisations will be introduced, including technical maths, technical science, which has already been written in 2018, maritime sciences, aviation studies, mining sciences, and aquaponics amongst others. To expand participation in the technical streams, several ordinary public schools will be transformed into technical high schools.
Another critical priority is to substantially improve reading comprehension in the first years of school. This is essential in equipping children to succeed in education, in work and in life - and it is possibly the single most important factor in overcoming poverty, unemployment and inequality. In this regard, we can announce and have already launched what we call the National Reading Coalition under the auspice of the National Education Collaboration Trust.
Chairperson, as the ANC, since the beginning of our struggle for freedom; it was always about fundamental human rights for all, including the oppressor. We have never separated the yearning for equal education outside the idea of a legitimate state founded on the will of the people.
History tells us that the ANC's President uBaba uLangalibalele Dube gave a public lecture in 1892 titled, "Upon My Native Land". In the lecture, he foretold that Africa in general, but South Africa in particular will be a free, spiritual and caring continent.
Two decades later, six lawyers who were all members of the ANC such as Henry Sylvester Williams, Alfred Mangena, Richard Msimang, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Ngcubu Poswayo and George Montsioa argued severally and collectively for a constitutionalism at the birth of the ANC in 1912. I am sure ...
IsiZulu:
... izigogwana ke ezifana nabanye kwi-DA nabangani babo ...
English:
... can look this up in that beautifully narrated book which has been written by Adv Tembeka Ngcukaitobi in the name of The Land is Ours.
Chairperson, the book, The Land is Ours, shows that these lawyers developed the concept of a Bill of Rights. So, is not anything that is fashionable, it is something that is steeped in the cultures and
the values of the ANC. The publisher, Penguin Random House SA says in the blurb and I quote:
This book is particularly relevant in light of current calls to scrap the Constitution and its protections of individual rights.
The book clearly demonstrates that, from the beginning, the struggle for freedom was based on the idea of the rule of law.
Chairperson, it is therefore should not come as a surprise when we say, we are indeed as the ANC midwives of this beautiful Constitution. Our leaders and our forebears risked life and limb in the pursuance of the rule of law. And we shall not tire in the face of peace time revolutionaries whose only mission is to steal our freedom and the only thing they know is to insult and insult and "vloek" [Swear.] at the ANC until the cows come home. At the heart of this constitutionalism, was the idea of human rights. At the pedestal of those rights is the right to education.
So Chairperson, it must be noted that the idea of creating a constitution state based on universal human rights including a one man, one vote is not a product of a compromise of the multiparty
negotiations in Convention for a Democratic SA, Codesa. We taught everybody including the Nationalist Party the value and purpose of a constitutional democracy.
As early as 1917, Comrade Sefako Mapogo Makgatho was elected the second President of the ANC, and he called for the creation of nonracial society in South Africa. He, together with his comrades promulgated the first Constitution which defined the ANC as a Pan- African Organisation.
As early as before the 1920s, the ANC stalwart and Isithwalandwe Charlotte ne Manye Maxeke was already at the forefront fighting for women's rights. Later in 1919, Comrade Maxeke helped that finest revolutionary Clements Kadalie to form the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, to fight for workers' rights. By 1930, it was established that in fact women's rights are indeed human rights.
In 1921 Rev Mahabane lamented in his speech and I quote:
We are not political children, that African people had been rendered landless, voteless, homeless and hopeless, degraded and dehumanised. ... not fully restore human dignity and its inherent basic human rights.
He foretold that the recovery of the African humanity Ubuntu and its inherent values of freedom, equality and justice for all will be the only basis for peace and development. He will be happy to know that we shall indeed reclaim our land and the land is ours.
By 1943 the ANC issued the African Claims, a Bill of Rights which amplified its 1923 original draft and reinforced the idea of self- determination and socioeconomic rights that is a second generation of human rights. So, we taught the FF Plus, AfriForum "en almal van julle" [And all of you.] the idea of self-determination. [Applause.]
In 1949, a new generation of revolutionaries took centre stage as the ANC Youth League adopted the programme of action which included demands such an inalienable rights to the land, right of self- determination and human rights. In 1954 women from the broad spectrum including the ANC adopted the Women's Charter. This was a precursor to the historic 1956 march.
Chairperson, it was only in 1955 at the Congress of the People that the struggle entered an irreversible gear as all people of this country; both black and white adopted the Freedom Charter. The Freedom Charter is notable for its demand for and commitment to a nonracial South Africa and this remains a platform of the ANC.
IsiZulu:
Yi ANC kuphela enosomqulu wenkululeko.
English:
The Charter also calls for democracy and human rights, land reform, free education, labour rights and nationalisation.
The 1996 Constitution is predicated on the text of the Freedom Charter. Our forebears will be happy to know that we will nationalise the Reserve Bank, but keep its mandate unchanged as demanded by the Constitution.
In the years, between 1990 and 1992, the ANC's constitutional committee under the late Dr Zola Skweyiya studied bills of human rights in Africa and abroad and the ANC produced a blueprint, Ready to Govern. As they say the rest is history.
In conclusion, Chair, I want to reinforce the historical truth that we are indeed as the ANC, midwives of this beautiful Constitution. Our forebears and our leaders risked life and limb in pursuance of the rule of law. And again I want to say, we shall not tire in the face again of your peace revolutionaries. I know they are going to come here and "vloek" [Swear.] from left to right, whose only
mission is to steal and insult the ANC. At the heart of the constitutionalism was the idea of human rights. At the pedestal of those rights is the right to education. Thank you very much, Chair. [Applause.]