International Conventions on Cultural Heritage: briefing by Department of Arts and Culture; Schools health and safety programmes: briefing by Department of Basic Education

NCOP Education and Technology, Sports, Arts and Culture

26 February 2014
Chairperson: Ms M Makgate (North West, ANC) Acting Chairperson(s): Ms B Mncube (Gauteng, ANC), Ms D Rantho (Eastern Cape, ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) briefed the Committee on the 2001 Unesco Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, the 1999 Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of Armed Conflict, and the 1995 Unidroit Convention on stolen or illegally Exported Cultural Objects.  The Department of Basic Education gave briefing on schools health and safety programmes.

The DAC said that the 2001 Unesco Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage promoted in situ conservation, because when there was a sunken shipwreck, it was better preserved under water.  If it were to be exposed to oxygen, for example, oxidation would occur and the shipwreck would begin to decay and lose its authenticity.  The Committee would agree that Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) was not common and that there were few people who understood issues surrounding UCH.  DAC thought that the only way to raise awareness about UCH would be to ensure that it popularised it through specific programmes, so that people could begin to realise there were opportunities in UCH and become involved in studies that had to do with maritime archeology.  Most of the coastal cities had UCH resources and there was a need for individuals who could manage them.  SA could establish bilateral relations with Mozambique, or look at regional multilateral agreements with countries that also had UCH, so that there could be a beneficial exchange of expertise and experiences in terms of the obligations and returns for ratifying the Convention.  The DAC thought it important for the country to accede to the Convention so that it could participate in all the international forums where there were experts who dealt with UCH.

Since SA had clearly indicated that it was a member of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, the Unidroit Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (24 June 1995)
was an improvement on the 1970 convention.  The 1970 Convention was focused more on inter-governmental negotiations, whereas the Unidroit Convention was based on a private law model. Therefore, if one had lost one’s cultural property and knew where it was, one could go to the International Court and use Unidroit to reclaim one’s property. The 1970 UNESCO convention depended only on negotiations.   For example, Lord Elgin (Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803) had taken the Parthenon Marbles and had sold them to the British Museum. The matter had still not been resolved to date, because it also depended on negotiation, and not court action.  The benefit of the Unidroit Convention was that one could simply lay a charge and the case would be tried.  Should the court decide in one’s favour, then that property could be reclaimed.

South Africa was already a signatory member to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, but not to the second protocol.   If one referred to military objectives, an example would be possibly the Castle of Good Hope. It was a heritage site and cultural property.  If countries were signatories to the 1954 Convention, they would be obliged in times of war not to attack the Castle of Good Hope, but if for any reason there were soldiers at the Castle, then it became a military objective. Therefore, to ensure that the Castle would be treated as cultural property, anything that had military implications needed to be removed from it, otherwise other countries could attack it.   This meant legislation having to be amended to address critical issues that were currently not covered in the National Heritage Resources Act, No 25 of 1999, such as the strict regulation of the location of cultural property in relation to military objectives. Distinctive marking of cultural property would also have financial implications, because in terms of the law, a country needed to have emblems that indicated areas that were of cultural significance, so that the invading parties should not attack them in contravention of the Convention.

The Committee asked DAC whether there was not a period of prescription where the state could no longer recover objects, in terms of the Unidroit convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects. What monetary contribution did SA have to make to the international fund to ensure the implementation of the second protocol to the Hague Convention? What would the consequences be for the destruction of cultural heritage sites, by invading parties that were also signatories to the protocol?  The Committee also asked whether there was a period of prescription, where the state could no longer recover objects, in terms of the Unidroit Convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects.

The DAC replied that countries with rich, long and dated histories were very sensitive about issues of prescription periods and looked at the implications that committing to a particular time period might mean. Those countries always guarded quite jealously what they already possessed and also made sure that they did not permit some of the safeguards that might allow countries to access some of the heritage objects that were in their possession.  When a convention was conceived, developed and adopted at UNESCO, the organization always created a fund aimed at making sure that whatever strategic objectives that convention wanted to obtain, would be attainable.  The minute a country signed onto a convention, there was an immediate obligation for it to pay a levy for that convention.  There were penalties in the legislation which could be imposed on invading countries if, during war, they destroyed or attacked cultural heritage objects and properties. Those payments possibly assisted in the rehabilitation of those sites in post-war reconstruction.  In terms of diplomatic relations, invading countries would also lose face should they attack cultural heritage sites, especially when they were signatories to the Second Protocol. This Convention needed to be seen, not as a tool for use after the fact, but also as a deterrent for invading countries when dealing with cultural heritage property. By signing as a member to the Convention, countries committed themselves to preserving a cultural heritage for the sake of humanity and not for a particular country alone.

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) said its strategy and vision for school safety was underpinned by the recommendations for safety within the National Development Plan (NDP).  One of Social Inclusion & Partnerships (SIPs) goals spoke specifically to retention of learners in schools, which involved school safety.   SIPs believed that school safety was an issue which involved the community as much as it resided in schools, meaning that parent support was needed, as violence did not always originate at schools.  Even though the public perceptions were that South African schools were burning, the evidence showed that violence had remained constant over a four year period. That evidence, though opposed to the general perception, in no way made the 22% violence levels in schools acceptable.  Transformation had not really affected how the country dealt with issues around violence. Remnants of violent protests as a way of getting attention were still very much with young people today.  The Care & Support in Schools (CSS) Chief Directorate within DBE had been reconfigured to look more holistically at the child’s well being, including issues of psychosocial support and others that had been since integrated within the new directorate. Of the three directorates under that chief directorate, one was the National School Nutrition Programme, which was reaching over nine million learners every single day.

The Committee asked asked how big a problem Satanism was in SA schools, as the recent case was not the first reported one in national media. Could DBE not bring in the children themselves as members of the task teams established to deal with violence and crime, especially in high schools? In poor rural communities, DBE was still not reaching enough girl children to supply them with sanitary material, and there was a need for universal coverage.

DBE responded that Satanism had flared up in certain areas recently and when SIPs investigated, it had found that mainly young girls were the instigators of such rituals. It seemed that the lack of role models gave those young women feelings of having supernatural powers.  Television programmes on vampires and witches were also influencing young people into believing that fantastical powers could be attained through Satanism.  It was working with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on a pamphlet it would put on its website, on how schools should respond to issues of Satanism.  DBE certainly listened to learners’ voices where it had Jam Bam Community Dialogues. Young people there spoke about their fears at home and at school, and the information from those forums influenced the policy development in the two directorates of DBE. 

Meeting report

Acting Chairperson and Opening Remarks
Ms B Mncube was elected as the Acting Chairperson in the absence of the Committee’s Chairperson. There was discussion was over the merits of whether the briefing should continue without there being a quorum of Members, because after the first presentation the Committee would have to adopt its contents.

Mr W Faber, (Northern Cape, DA) said that if the briefing was just for information purposes, there was no problem, but a problem would arise when a quorum was reached and the Committee had to vote. He asked how Members who had not been present would be allowed to vote for adoption?

The Acting Chairperson said that it was Mr De Villiers who needed to clarify his position.  He had said that the briefing could go on so that the Committee could get clarity on the first presentation, and after a quorum had been reached, they could decide whether to adopt or not. 

Mr M de Villiers (Western Cape, DA) said that the Committee could receive the briefing, but could not adopt it if there were only four Members, but could do so in the following session, during the second presentation. If there was quorum, then the first presentation could be approved, provided that only the Members that were present during the first briefing were voting for its adoption.

Unesco Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (2 November, 2001) (see document)
Mr Vusi Ndima, Deputy Director General, Department of Arts and Culture (DAC), said that the Convention promoted in situ conservation because when there was a sunken shipwreck, it was better preserved underwater, because if it were to be exposed to oxygen, for example, oxidation would occur and the shipwreck would begin to decay and lose its authenticity.  The Committee would agree that Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) was not common and that there were few people who understood issues surrounding UCH.   DAC thought that the only way to raise awareness about UCH would be to ensure that it popularized UCH through specific programmes, so that people could begin to realise there were opportunities in UCH and become involved in studies that had to do with maritime archeology.  In South Africa, there were fewer than ten well-known maritime archeologists, in a country that had so many UCH resources. Most of the coastal cities had UCH resources and there was a need for individuals who could manage them.  SA could establish bilateral relations with Mozambique, or look at regional multilateral agreements with countries that also had UCH, so that there could be a beneficial exchange of expertise and experiences in terms of the obligations and returns for ratifying the Convention.  The DAC thought it important for the country to accede to the Convention so that it could participate in all the international forums where there were experts who dealt with UCH.

Unidroit Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (24 June 1995)
Obligations and Benefits for ratifying the Unidroit Convention 
Mr Ndima said that since SA had clearly indicated that it was a member of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, the Unidroit Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (24 June 1995)
was an improvement on the 1970 convention.   The 1970 Convention was focused more on inter-governmental negotiations, whereas the Unidroit Convention was based on a private law model. Therefore, if one had lost one’s cultural property and knew where it was, one could go to the International Court and use Unidroit to reclaim one’s property. The 1970 UNESCO convention depended only on negotiations -- for example, UNESCO had been struggling with two cases for years.  One dated back to when Mussolini attacked the then Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1937, and had taken what was called the Obelisk of Axum. It had been returned to Ethiopia only in 2005, because that had depended on negotiations between various states. The other involved the Elgin Marbles, where Lord Elgin, Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803, had taken the Parthenon Marbles and had sold them to the British Museum. The matter had still not been resolved to date, because it also depended on negotiation, and not court action.  The benefit of the Unidroit Convention was that one could simply lay a charge and the case would be tried.  Should the court decide in one’s favour, then that property could be reclaimed.

Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (26 March 1999)
Mr Ndima reminded the Committee that SA was already a signatory member to the Hague Convention of 1954, but not to the second protocol.   If one referred to military objectives, an example would be possibly the Castle of Good Hope. It was a heritage site and cultural property.  If countries were signatories to the 1954 Convention, they would be obliged in times of war not to attack the Castle of Good Hope, but if for any reason there were soldiers at the Castle, then it became a military objective. Therefore, to ensure that the Castle would be treated as cultural property, anything that had military implications needed to be removed from it, otherwise other countries could attack it.   This meant legislation having to be amended to address critical issues that were currently not covered in the National Heritage Resources Act, No 25 of 1999, such as the strict regulation of the location of cultural property in relation to military objectives. Distinctive marking of cultural property would also have financial implications, because in terms of the law, a country needed to have emblems that indicated areas that were of cultural significance, so that the invading parties should not attack them in contravention of the Convention.

Mr Ndima said that every time DAC presented these Conventions the question remained always as to whether there were any prospects that SA would embark on a war at any time?  The response was always that DAC did not know, nor could it give any guarantees.   SA might not be an aggressor, but that did not mean that there could be no aggressors against SA, and therefore it was best to prepare for whatever eventuality might arise.    

The Acting Chairperson told the Committee that there would only be one round of questions, so Members needed to ask all their questions at once. 

Discussion
Mr T Makunyane (ANC, Limpopo) asked DAC whether there was not a period of prescription where the state could no longer recover objects, in terms of the Unidroit Convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects.

Mr Faber said that the UNESCO Convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage promoted in situ (underwater) conservation as the first option, and encouraged the long-term preservation of these objects.  Could DAC clarify this for him, because he failed to understand how shipwrecks, fish-traps and shell middens became classified as part of our UCH?

Mr De Villiers asked what monetary contribution SA had to make to the International fund to ensure the implementation of the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954.   Knowing that there was already another international convention to which SA was a member, would that fund be additional to the one for that convention, or would it be separate and distinctly be for the Second Protocol?  SA already had a policy on a legislative framework that addressed issues on stolen or illegally exported cultural property. Had that policy been implemented already, because SA had a lot of cultural property illegally removed to other countries and continents, such as Europe and America?  This was also related to whether SA had the teeth to bite where and when it had to, in that regard.  What were the time frames for the amendment of the National Heritage Resources Act, No 25 of 1999, to address critical issues that were currently not covered, as per the prescripts of the Second Protocol, such as the strict regulation of the location of cultural property in relation to military objectives?  Could DAC tell the Committee when it would be ready to present that information?

What would the consequences be for invading parties responsible for the destruction of cultural heritage sites, who were also signatories to the Second Protocol?

Mr Makunyane asked what the consequences would have been had liberation political parties decided to attack the Voortrekker monument as a strategic target, in terms of the Second Protocol.
Ms Mncube said that she had had a great-great-grandfather who had been enlisted on the side of the British allies, as part of the African contingent of soldiers that participated in the First World War, and who had perished in that war. When she had looked on the internet to find out about him, she had found reference only to white former soldiers from SA and abroad.  What was one supposed to do in that instance?   

Ms D Rantho (Eastern Cape, ANC) said that as an extension of Ms Mncube’s concern, there was also the issue of African soldiers having to have changed their surnames to a translatable English/ Afrikaans surname -- for example Ndlovu would have changed to being Oliphant.

Mr Ndima replied that shipwrecks were a part of history, in the sense of the so-called ‘voyages of discovery’, when imperialism and colonialism came to the African continent. Ships had been the primary mode of transportation, and many had sunk in the process. Since history had a record of those wreckages, they also had significant information that was not available through other means. The maritime archeologists that discovered the social utensils and the dress sense of those people of that era could also discover the social relationships of that time. This was why DAC was saying that if SA wanted a comprehensive understanding of its history, it could not neglect its UCH.  Additionally one could also understand the shifts in terms of technological advancement, by comparing the ship structures of those times to those of present day. Moreover there was also the opportunity to see what economies were based on in the past, and what currencies were used.

There were penalties in the legislation which could be imposed on invading countries if, during war, they destroyed or attacked cultural heritage objects and properties. Those payments possibly assisted in the rehabilitation of those sites in post-war reconstruction.  In terms of diplomatic relations, invading countries would also lose face should they attack cultural heritage sites, especially when they were signatories to the Second Protocol. This Convention needed to be seen, not as a tool for use after the fact, but also as a deterrent for invading countries when dealing with cultural heritage property. By signing as a member to the Convention, countries committed themselves to preserving a cultural heritage for the sake of humanity and not for a particular country alone.

If SA acceded to the Second Protocol, there might be a need for an amendment to the law, but DAC  had not set itself a time frame for the completion of that process, as that still depended on the legislators.

Ms Mncube said her comment did not necessarily relate to the Convention, but it was an important point because DAC was aware that there were many African communities that had participated in various international wars, such as the First and Second World Wars, and that indeed recognition had not been given to acknowledging and appreciating the participation of those soldiers. Currently there were attempts to see what could be done to ensure that the history of all those fallen heroes of the Battle of the Somme and Delville Wood in France was also recognized, in order to try and correct that historical record. The Department of Military Veterans (DMV) was already working with DAC on plans for the celebrations around the sinking of the Mendi.  There were attempts to research, collate and correct some of the current historical records so as to also include the history of marginalized communities.

Mr Mbhazima Makhubela, Director: Heritage, DAC said that a heritage object was not there for purposes of heritage only; it had other purposes as well. For example, the shoes that former President Nelson Mandela had worn at Robben Island were never made special by their maker, but because they had been worn by him, they had been transformed into objects of significance, and the same thing could be said about many other objects which had become significant.

Mr Makhubela said he had attended a few UNESCO meetings where he had found countries with rich, long and dated histories to be very sensitive about the issue of periods of prescription.   When one presented something in terms of timelines, these countries always went back to their institutional memory and looked at the implications that committing to a particular time period might mean. For example, Great Britain would be very reluctant to agree if one put into a convention that a country like Egypt should have a right to claim any of its stolen or illegally removed possessions. Those countries always guarded quite jealously what they already possessed, and also made sure that they did not allow some of the safeguards that could allow countries to access some of the heritage objects that were in their possession.  Interrogating the Unidroit Convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects, one would find that it went back only as far as three years.   This meant that any claim for restitution should be brought within a period of three years from the time that the claimant knew the location of the cultural object and the identity of its possessor, and in any case within a period of 50 years from the time of the sale. DAC understood the reasons behind those time constraints, because the introducers and signatories of the Convention did not want to open themselves up to all sorts of litigation and challenges that could arise.

When a convention was conceived, developed and adopted at UNESCO, the organization always made sure that it created a fund of some nature. That fund would be aimed specifically at making sure that whatever strategic objectives that convention wanted to obtain, they would be attainable. Member countries of UNESCO paid their dues, of course, but when they ratified a specific instrument there was a requirement that possibly one percent additional to a country’s normal contribution would be needed. That one percent then would go towards the fund that would be used for either UCH or to promote the ideals of the Protocol. There was no limit in terms of when a country could join that particular fund, because the minute a country became a signatory to a convention, there was an immediate obligation for it to pay a levy.

Ms Mncube noted that there was quorum, and the read the Committee’s report on the conventions presented and asked for motion to adopt. Mr Makunyane moved for adoption, and Mr De Villiers seconded the motion.

The report was adopted and the first session was adjourned.    
Department of Basic Education briefing
At the beginning of the second session, Ms Rantho was designated as the Acting Chairperson by the ANC.

Mr De Villiers noted that there seemed to have been a change in acting Chairpersons, without the proper procedure being followed. He asked if the proper changing could be done, for record purposes.

The secretary asked for nominations for a new acting Chairperson.  Ms Rantho was nominated by Ms Mncube and Mr De Villiers seconded that nomination. Ms Rantho then officially became the acting Chairperson for the second session of the meeting.

After the introductions, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) took the Committee through its presentation.    

School Safety & the Integrated School Health Programme
Dr Faith Kumalo, Chief Director, Care & Support in Schools, DBE, apologized on behalf of the Director General (DG) and the Deputy Director General (DDG), Dr Bobby Soobrayan and Ms Gugulethu Ndebele, for their absence.  DBE was grateful to the Committee for wanting a briefing on school safety and school health as it felt the topics were really critical social issues that required everyone’s collective effort. Dr Kumalo and Dr Mannah came from the Social Mobilisation and Support Services branch of DBE. Their branch was meant to support and create an enabling and optimum teaching and learning environment. Their mandate was, therefore, to mobilise all sectors in support of basic education, so that they could use them as vehicles for promoting learner access to a range of public services -- for example, health, poverty alleviation, social cohesion and, sport and culture.
When the new administration had come in in 2009, it had identified four critical interventions that had since been the mantra that DBE had worked towards. DBE had acronymed those as CAWI (Curriculum, Annual National Assessment, Wordbooks and Infrastructure), which was focused on strengthening curriculum delivery, strengthening assessment through the use of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) as well as the Annual National Assessment (ANA), making sure that workbooks were available and were being used, and lastly issues of infrastructure.  Underpinning all of that was the unit that the DBE delegation came from, which said that all of those four interventions could never happen without a supportive and enabling schools environment.

The Chairperson asked the secretary to note Member and DBE apologies.

School Safety Programme (see document)   
Dr Shermain Mannah, Acting Chief Director, Social Inclusion & Partnerships (SIPs), DBE said that her directorate comprised four directorates.  These were:
• Social cohesion and equity, which dealt with gender equity, and specifically human rights;
• Sport and enrichment, specifically focused on sports leagues and school sports and physical education as well as cultural issues;
• School safety, which was fairly new, with a focus on school violence and a further extension that would be included at a later stage; and
• Partnerships, which was focused on working with partnerships involving the business sector, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), interested parties and entities.  Those partnerships were facilitated so that they could support the priorities of DBE.

DBE’s strategy and vision for school safety was underpinned by the safety recommendations within the National Development Plan (NDP). The plan had set out 27 goals for DBE which were directly aligned to outcome one -- the delivery of quality basic education. One of SIP’s goals specifically spoke to retention of learners in schools, which also involved school safety.  SIPs believed that school safety was an issue which involved the community as much as it resided in schools, meaning that parent support was needed, as violence did not always originate at schools.  In terms of SIPs receiving reports of violence at schools from provincial DBE, the integrity of that data was doubtful most of the time, which was why it relied on external partners to give SIPs proper, valid and evidence-based data.  Even though the public perceptions were that South African schools were burning, the evidence showed that violence had remained constant over a four year period. That evidence, though opposed to the general perception, in no way made the 22% violence levels in schools acceptable.  Alternatively it gave DBE a chance to see what was working for 80% of the learners in high schools across the country.  

Dr Mannah said that SIPs believed that violence could not be simply reduced to the classrooms, but involved the surrounding environment as well. The community and the family needed to be considered when wanting to deal effectively with school violence. SA was located in a violent society -- even historically, that had been the case. Transformation had not really affected how the country dealt with issues around violence. Remnants of violent protests as a way of getting attention were still very much with young people today.  One of the easiest things to do was to resort to violence instead of alternative conflict resolution, when people were frustrated as well.

Focus of DBE-SAPS Protocol
DBE did not want police to be patrolling the schools because then crime would go underground and become more pervasive. A school could not be safe in an unsafe community.  The issue was about how the community police forums came together with school governing bodies to create a kind of safety net around schools. For too long, schools had been vandalized, with learning equipment and infrastructure being removed from them.  SIPs were making education a societal issue, giving the community ownership over the education of its children.  DBE knew that bullying at school was a precursor to more violent behaviour, and therefore there needed to be prevention at that stage. That had not been happening, as teachers did not know how to deal with bullying, neither could they recognize it. Currently increasing in the country was cyber-bullying through smartphones. There had been pamphlets developed to address it, but the life orientation (LO) curriculum also dealt with it as well. 

DBE had been using the South African School and Administration Management Systems (SA SAMS) system as a monitoring framework, but had been experiencing challenges, as only 30% of the schools in the country were populating it. Sometimes DBE wanted all the details of all five million learners and 26 000 schools in the country, but at other times it would be better to do small random sampling of a few schools, so that SIPs could get a feel of what was happening. SA SAMS would still be used, with the hope of having it populated up to 60% to allow for generalization.

Integrated School Health Programme (see document)
Dr Kumalo said that this programme had been housed in the Care & Support in Schools (CSS) Chief Directorate. DBE had reconfigured it to look more holistically at a child’s well being, including issues of psychosocial support, which had since been integrated within the new directorate. Of the three directorates under the chief directorate, one was the National School Nutrition Programme which was reaching over nine million learners every day. There was also the Health Promotion Directorate within which the Integrated School Health Programme (ISHP) was housed. That directorate also dealt with issues of HIV and AIDS within the school environment, and also managed the drug and alcohol prevention, and peer education programmes, respectively. The newest directorate was psychosocial support, which was only one year old.  CSS was beginning to put down a mandate for DBE so that it could be resourced better.

The reciprocal relationship between health and education had been well documented and researched. It was known that education in itself was a key determinant of better health outcomes.  Educated people had the requisite skills to be able to take appropriate health decisions around their well being. Alternatively, if there were health barriers that were not identified early and addressed, they could in themselves be a barrier to accessing optimum teaching and learning, and therefore within a schooling environment, the optimum outcomes would be unachievable. Many of the older generation could recall that during their tenure at schools, there would be nurses coming regularly to schools to do vaccinations and other services. Those services had over the past decade decreased. The Department of Health (DOH) had developed a schools health policy that had not been implemented as well as it should have been since 2003.

Given the clear resource constraints that the Joint Task Team between DBE and DOH had identified in 2009, they had found that there were approximately only 500 school health nurses in the country who had to service over 12 million learners. It had become clear then that the mandate between the two Departments would never be implementable.  Development partners had been brought in, as they were more present on the ground, and also because they could guide DBE as to where it should go according to the latest evidence, and could also assist DBE to fund that work. Through the ISHP, DBE could address the two most important priorities of the current administration -- the health status of learners and their educational outcomes.


Achievements: Inter-sectoral collaboration
The joint implementation plans for 2013/14, and the draft for 2014/15, were key for DBE, because they began to get a number of state Departments to work together towards a common vision and to have the same indicators and targets for success in each of their Annual Performance Plans (APPs). The ISHP was the probably the only programme in Government that was managing to do that, as state departments generally worked in silos.

Challenges
CSS was having some challenges in terms of getting data from DOH to DBE in time and with accuracy. The Auditor General (AG) had raised the issue with CSS, as it expected the name and identity document number of an individual that had received the services, but because health was a confidential and private matter, DOH had told CSS that it could not access that information. CSS had subsequently communicated that to the AG.  CSS received no voted funds for all the work that it was doing. The total budget for CSS was R450 000, which was not enough. It had asked for a further allocation to continue its work, but was still awaiting a response.  It believed that there needed to be an investment made moving forward, as this was a critical programme for education and the health of the nation.

Some of the CSS plans at national level were not seeing full expression in the country’s schools, and DBE was aware of this.  DBE could set targets at national level that were informed by provinces, but sometimes the failures were not reported to CSS, so it was really important to get both the community, as well as the support of the Committee, to point out to CSS where issues that were planned at policy and programme level were not finding full expression on the ground.   

Discussion
Ms Rantho asked the Committee to be direct and concise with their questions.

Ms Mncube asked what both directorates from DBE that had presented, had planned to do in order to deal with the issue of Satanism in schools.  A learner had hanged himself using the burglar bars of his classroom at school on that morning. Additionally the media reporting of cases where learners were beating up their teachers seemed to be perpetuating a trend, even though it was news to the press.  She wondered whether DBE needed to engage on it, as there were unintended consequences. Could DBE provide the Committee with the reading material it had developed to deal all the issues that had been raised during the presentation? 

Mr De Villiers said that the ISHP and the School Safety Programme (SSP) needed to be more focused, in the sense that the programmes should allow both teachers and learners to leave teaching and learning, because previously with such programmes, everyone treated the presentation time as a time to relax. Was there a focus to ensure that the programmes had maximum impact?  On oversight in the provinces, the Committee had been confronted with schools that had funding challenges in procuring cleaning materials for classrooms, as well as toilets. The actual toilet design was still problematic and there was also the issue of hygiene, in keeping the toilet seats clean as well.  Did DBE have a plan in hand to address this issue?  General hand hygiene was also not imparted by teachers to learners -- what was DBE doing about that? In rural, poor communities, DBE was still not reaching enough girl children to supply them with sanitary material -- what was its current plan to reach universal coverage? What was the situation where the general presentability of learners at pre-primary was concerned.  Did DBE rely solely on giving teachers booklets on how learners should look?

Mr Mokonyane asked how big a problem Satanism  was in SA schools, as the recent case was not the first one reported in the national media.

Ms Rantho commented that indeed, violence did not always originate at schools, but the stabbing of a learner in a school bus by another learner in 2013 was a case in point.  In what category did that case fall?  The issue with goal 22 of the NDP was that it was not finding expression on the ground, as when parents wanted to be involved in the School Governing Body (SGB), teachers had a tendency of preventing them, saying that parents had no business in school affairs, as that was the domain of teachers only. How could the state ensure that the goal found expression in public schools? Could DBE not bring in the children themselves as members of the task teams established to deal with violence and crime, especially in high schools?  As part of the key findings of SIPs, it seemed that it was focusing more on children being the perpetrators of violence against teachers, especially with regard to sexual assault offences, while educators seemed to be having immunity, as they could impose punishment on those learners.  How did DBE deal with such cases?  There were numerous challenges facing learners, such as taverns and graveyards that were situated very close to their schools, which posed potential barriers to children accessing schooling.

Ms Rantho said she had a late friend who was a school nurse, who simply had no professional conduct when dealing with learners. The behaviour was so bad that it possibly affected a child’s self esteem, as the child would be in consultation with the nurse on a one-to-one basis, but such cases were never followed up.  CSS needed to be aware of such attitudes and also needed to have a way of addressing them as well.

Ms Mncube said that when she left teaching in 2009, DBE’s approach was very reactionary, but as violence was currently happening and being reported through the media, did DBE have a target to gradually phase in strategies to deal with violence in schools?  Were the any hallmark indicators that could be used in early detection of the proliferation of Satanism  in schools?  

Dr Mannah said that Satanism had recently flared up in certain areas and when SIPs had investigated, it had found that mainly young girls were the instigators of such rituals. It seemed that the lack of role models gave these young women feelings of having supernatural powers. The constitution allowed any religion where there was no harm to other individuals, but what separated Satanism was that harm was not limited to persons, it also included animals as well.  SIPs had compiled a list of areas were there seemed to be a potential for Satanism to manifest itself.  There was also the recent high profile case where a young woman had been burnt alive by her friends as some form of satanic act. Television programmes on vampires and witches were also influencing young people into believing that fantastical powers could be attained through Satanism. DBE could go into those schools were such influences were identified and reported, and do rehabilitation.  It would quote the constitution, showing how a particular religion would contravene it, if it involved the taking of lives of both humans and animals.  DBE was also working with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on a pamphlet it would put on its website, on how schools should respond to issues of Satanism.

The need for psychosocial support in schools was evident from the case of the child that hanged himself through the burglar bars at his school.  Many times teachers were so busy with the work of teaching that they missed it when children were suffering psychologically, and more teacher training and development was needed to help them become aware of the psychological difficulties of learners.  In some of the training that SIPs were planning to have on Gender Based Violence (GBV), it was putting psychological awareness and intuition as an integral part of the teacher’s reflection. Teachers needed to be vigilant for changes in a child’s behaviour.

There was enough reading material, and more could be made available as per the Committee’s requests.

The norms and standards for school’s funding, as part of the maintenance budgets, gave funding to fix broken windows and to do cleaning as well. DBE would have to look at how schools were using that budget and whether they were providing the kind of cleaning material needed. There were also norms and standards for school infrastructure that spoke specifically to issues of ablution facilities, including toilets, but as it had been reviewed only in November 2013, schools would have to familiarise themselves with them, so that they could elevate those issues to district and provincial levels.  They could then be put on a priority list to get problem toilets sorted out.

Life Orientation did indeed have a general hygiene component. The “dignity for girls” campaign that was being run by the Department for Women, Children and People with Disabilities (DWCPD) had unfortunately not reached all its intended beneficiaries. Additionally, the disposal of sanitary towels created another problem in rural schools, as young girls threw them in the pit latrines, and the material was not bio-degradable. DBE had engaged with DWCPD to come up with a more eco-friendly alternative to the current material so that it would not pose a health hazard in terms of waste management. It had a partnership with Procter and Gamble, and wherever it had been brought to DBEs attention that there were children in need of sanitary material, they had been able to provide them with it.  

A child being killed outside the school gate or on the school bus was indeed still DBE’s concern, but many times it was found that schools did not listen to the intelligence that other children gave them. As an educator, this was imperative and DBE needed to empower its teachers to be vigilant of the intelligence that came from learners.  It was also important for educators to not to ask learners to spy on their friends, but to speak up when they understood that someone’s life was in danger. The transport providers also needed to be vigilant of such instances where learners where carrying weapons to school. All of that DBE would look into.

DBE knew that educators were also perpetrators of violence against learners, but DBE had been working very closely with the South African Council of Educators (SACE) to be able to deal with these issues.  Dr Mannah felt that for too long, things had been going on as they had been. Children, though, were becoming more vigilant and were speaking out more openly. An important component of school safety and the LO curriculum was to impress upon young people their rights as well. SACE needed to be more vocal against teacher-learner sexual relations, as there had been 22 cases reported in 2013 and for children under the age of 16 years, such relations constituted statutory rape.   

DBE certainly listened to learners’ voices when it held Jam Bam Community Dialogues. Young people there spoke about their fears at home and at school, and the information from those forums influenced the policy development in the two directorates of DBE.

Dr Kumalo said that CSS had run a competition for secondary school learners, in terms of the HIV/AIDS life skills programme. That competition asked those learners what worked and what did not work, and the CSS used that information to guide what then became the focus of the ISHP. One of the things that had come from learners was that they wanted a lot more attention on boys and their issues, as well as those of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) learner issues.

Hygiene was part of the health education component that CSS wanted the health promoters to address, because that was something that had been there before, and it had been relatively cheap. One of the partners, Colgate-Palmolive, was working towards making sure that there was soap available when DBE celebrated International Hand Washing Day with them and other partners.   

DBE noted that there was a challenge in disseminating the reading material it had developed, and were currently developing, as part of the SSP and ISHP, but the information could also be accessed on DBE’s website.

There was an Inter-Ministerial Committee that dealt with drug and alcohol use, where there was a process underway that was looking at exactly the number and the proximity of taverns to schools, as well as places of worship.  That Committee had probably decided to prioritise the issue of alcohol advertising first, but certainly the proximity and licensing issues would emerge quite soon. DBE was also working with the Department of Cooperate Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), as the issuing of licences was a municipal competence. 

Ms Rantho thanked DBE and Members and said that the Committee would be following developments in regard to what had been presented, and would recall the Department to account on the follow up to the reported cases of child victimization at schools.
She summarised the main issues of the discussion and the meeting was adjourned.
 

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