Hon Speaker, Members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, for some time now I have been aware of the wide-ranging comments on the implementation of the National Curriculum Statement. While there has been positive support for the new curriculum, there has also been considerable criticism. This has included criticism of teacher overload, confusion and stress. Most worryingly, there is consistent evidence of widespread learner underperformance in both international and local assessments.
When I assumed office as Minister of Basic Education, my predecessor Minister Naledi Pandor had already initiated a process to review the implementation of the curriculum. I accordingly appointed a panel of experts in July 2009 to investigate the nature of the challenges and problems being experienced in the implementation of the National Curriculum Statement. This decision to review was based on our commitment to improving the quality of teaching and learning in our schools in both the short and long term.
The team was tasked to develop a set of recommendations designed to improve implementation. I asked the team to focus specifically on curriculum policy and guideline documents, the transition between grades and phases, and assessment - particularly continuous assessment. During the hearings they decided to include a consideration of learning and teaching-support materials and teacher support and training. A report has now been presented to me, which I have accepted, and I have started a process of implementing its recommendations.
The question on everyone's lips is why we do not, as Mamphela Ramphele always wants us to do, produce the death certificate of outcomes-based education, OBE. I must say that we have, to all intents and purposes, done so. So if anybody asks us if we are going to continue with OBE, we say that there is no longer OBE. We have completely done away with it. [Applause.]
I do not wish to be drawn into simplistic ideological debates on this issue and forced into a disavowal of our goals. The question is how we can disentangle our goals from the outcomes in which they are expressed, and the very concept of outcomes.
It is instructive to remember that the introduction of both Curriculum 2005 and the National Curriculum Statement were highly contested. These involved professional, business and religious constituencies. We should be steadfast and not let them determine what is good for education now. In order for there to be learning outcomes and educational experiences of the majority to improve, we need to focus attention on dedicated, inspired teaching based on a curriculum that is teachable.
The review panel reviewed documents and conducted interviews and hearings with teachers from all nine provinces as well as with teacher unions. They received electronic and written submissions from the public. In the process of their consultations - that they undertook across the country - there was a remarkable consensus amongst teachers and unions about what the problems were. The team also reports that there was an overwhelming sense of the overall commitment of teachers across the country to try to improve learner performance.
The task team has recommended that the changes occur within a framework of a five-year plan from 2010 to 2014. This plan needs to be widely communicated. The plan will be shared with teachers before the end of the year. I will present the recommendations within the timeframes anticipated for implementation.
Some of the changes will take effect from January 2010. Some of the recommendations to be implemented from the beginning of 2010 should definitely bring immediate relief to teachers. Others will need more planning and consultation. The emphasis is on ensuring that there is more time for teaching and learning. Teachers will be relieved of administrative burdens that impact on teaching time. The system will provide systematic support to teachers to strengthen their teaching.
The measures to be implemented in January 2010 revolve around the relief of the administrative burden on teachers, increasing teacher support and improving literacy and numeracy. Allow me to provide some of the details. Some of the details will be on our website and, again, we will communicate them through the media and also copies will be sent to all 28 000 schools in the country.
With regard to the relief of the administrative burden on teachers, we are going to ensure that learner portfolios as separate, formal compilations of assessment tasks are discontinued from January 2010. What the team found is that some of the assessment requirements that we had placed on learners did not add any value, but instead distracted both teachers and learners from the core function of the curriculum.
We are also going to make sure that the number of projects required as formal assessment tasks for each learning area is reduced to one project per subject. We are also going to make sure that promotion and progression requirements for Grades R to 12, as well as grading descriptors for all grades, are finalised. The balance between year marks and exams should be 50% for Grades 4 to 9, and 75% exam marks for Grades 10 to 12.
Because there was a very strange anomaly in our system in which the importance of textbooks in curriculum delivery was no longer appreciated, the department has noted teachers' concerns that the development of learning materials is best placed in the hands of experts, because it is only people who are experts in their fields of study that are best placed to develop textbooks and learning materials. In this review teachers said that the development of learning materials is not the core business of teachers. It also erodes their teaching time. Therefore, textbooks are going to be used as an effective tool to ensure consistency, coverage, appropriate pacing and better quality in terms of instruction and content. There were also enormous planning requirements for teachers and these are going to be rationalised. The review also suggested that we must give more support to teachers - teachers being our tools of service, and, more than anything, being the key element in ensuring that we get quality education.
Some teachers have voiced the concern that they have not had sufficient curriculum training. Targeted in-service training that will be subject specific and targeted only where needed will be provided for teachers from 2010. This in-service training will not, however, under any circumstances be allowed to disrupt teaching and learning. In-service training is built into the five-year plan for improving teaching and learning and the department's plan for continuing professional development training.
All principals, heads of department, district and provincial support staff will be trained on the curriculum and content and assessment requirements. Again, this will be built into a five-year plan for improving teaching and learning.
The other matter that was raised through the review was the role of the subject advisers as school-based subject experts rather than as curriculum developers. This was because there was, again, an anomaly in which subject advisers themselves had started papering on top of the current curriculum. So what we are saying is that subject advisers will only focus their work on the delivery, implementation and moderation of the curriculum. They will offer learning areas and support teachers only.
The major issue that has been affecting us concerns international testing of literacy and numeracy. We are going to be implementing the Foundations for Learning Programme from 2010. The programme establishes the non- negotiables of resources, teacher planning and effective teaching. The focus is on reading, writing and mental maths each day, and on regular, standardised assessments of learner performance.
The Department of Basic Education has developed extensive learning and teaching packages for Grades R to 6 teachers to assist with planning, teaching and learning. These packs will be distributed to all primary schools at the start of the school year in 2010.
Moving beyond 2010 - from 2011 and beyond - the Department of Basic Education will begin to concretise the following recommendations for implementation. We will be looking at reducing the number of learning programmes. This is because, again in the study, the review committee raised concerns about the number of learning areas in the intermediate phase - that our children are expected to jump from four learning areas to about eight or nine learning areas. This is a huge jump and creates a major problem in terms of articulation. Therefore, moving forward from 2011, this will reduce the overload on learners and allow more time for language teaching and learning during the critical transition from Grades 3 to 4.
All learners from Grades 4 to 12 will receive their own textbooks for every learning area. The department will issue guidelines for textbooks and distribution, and the selection will be done nationally. There is a plethora of policies, guidelines and interpretations of policies and guidelines at all levels of the education system. Thus, the other matter that was raised by the curriculum review was that we have to streamline our policy, clarify it, and make sure that all of us have a common understanding and interpretation of what is required of our learners.
The department will develop a set of simple, coherent curriculum documents per subject per phase from Grades R to 12. This will simply describe the content, the concepts and the skills that are supposed to be taught. Anyone who has taught before will know what we are talking about: the syllabi, which spells out what your aims, your objectives, your learning areas, your methodology and your assessments are in very simple and clear terms.
By addressing the curriculum implementation challenges, the Ministry will create an enabling learning and teaching environment through which we can focus on laying the foundations of quality education for all.
In addition to these reforms being monitored by the Presidency, the department is developing its own monitoring tools through the establishment of the National Educational Evaluation Development Unit. Through this unit, the department will not only evaluate schools and teachers, but evaluate the entire system. This will enable the department, on an ongoing basis, to identify challenges, and, working together with the affected stakeholders, address them.
I am encouraged by the undeniable dedication of our educators to improving learner performance. I wish to reaffirm that teachers are key to the realisation of quality education. I want to wish all stakeholders well in our joint efforts to overcome the challenges, which we have all collectively identified.
For learning outcomes and educational experiences of the majority to improve, we need focused attention to dedicated, inspired teaching based on a curriculum that is teachable. To make sure that as we debate we have a common focus, we will focus on the curriculum as a starting point because the curriculum is the core or the main business of education.
We are aware of all the other challenges we are going to face in the implementation of the curriculum that revolve around or start from your infrastructure, your scholar transport, your motivation, your dedication. We are saying we have to start with the main business of education which is the curriculum. As we clear up the curriculum, we definitely have plans to ensure that we remove all other obstacles that are going to affect the curriculum. But my main focus is the major business of education, which is the curriculum. Therefore, add on other measures to support the curriculum like teacher support, learner discipline, infrastructure and all other related matters. This is our starting point, because the curriculum is the main thing in education. I thank you, Speaker. [Applause.]
Mr Speaker, I would like to start off by giving credit where credit is due. Minister, the DA would like to congratulate you on being bold enough to review the implementation of the National Curriculum Statement and on making critical changes with regard to it. [Applause.]
Thank you for being honest enough to acknowledge the necessity to move back to the more conventional approach to education of earlier times. More specifically, thank you for taking our education back to basics.
Minister, your announcement of necessary changes to streamline and simplify the administrational functions of teachers in the first place, and the provision of structured systemic support in the second place, should have been accompanied by proper planning by your department. Recommendations and corresponding implementation plans should have been announced simultaneously. This is clearly not the case.
You received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from Dr Mamphela Ramphele this week for addressing shortcomings in education. She called upon South Africans to support you in this regard. I now call upon you, Minister, to support our teachers by communicating the changes by means of user-friendly documents on the one hand, and by appointing expert teachers to assist the department in doing so on the other.
Many of the recommended changes will only be implemented in 2011. It would, therefore, be premature to fully evaluate these changes, as we are keenly aware of the fact that adaptations to certain recommendations might occur during the refinement thereof.
Comments on certain aspects of the structure of the curriculum resulted in some changes to it, for instance the number of subjects for the Intermediate Phase were reduced. This resulted in the incorrect perception that the entire curriculum has been rectified, which is not the case. Problems regarding the Further Education and Training phase were not addressed.
Adaptations and changes to the curriculum should be based on a proper analysis in accordance with scientific curriculum development requirements and procedures and not merely as a result of consultations with all the relevant stakeholders.
Minister, although your endeavours to address the many problems of our dysfunctional education system are widely appreciated, you ought to acknowledge that your intervention is merely crisis management and a repetition of similar attempts by your predecessors.
I therefore strongly suggest the establishment of a fully-fledged curriculum development unit by the national Department of Education. The current curriculum development unit at the department, staffed by learning area specialists for the General Education and Training phase and subject specialists for the Further Education and Training phase, is totally inadequate. A learning area specialist or a subject specialist is not a curriculum developer.
Curriculum development is a science in itself and, therefore, such a unit should be manned and served by trained, qualified and experienced curriculum researchers. [Applause.]
Mr Speaker, Cope would like to commend and congratulate the Minister on her speedy response to the curriculum crisis and discomfort in the country. I must also say that the Minister has pulled the carpet from under people, because she has covered every track. It is also hoped that the recommendations of the review committee will eventually stabilise the education environment.
Just so we do not forget, since the dawn of democracy, education has gone through many facelifts, from slogan to slogan, from one curriculum to the next, and I'm happy that the Minister has alluded to that.
Throughout these many changes, one must bear in mind that we have been producing tomorrow's leaders who cannot, even among themselves, agree on what curriculum they learned. It is also not difficult to imagine what kind of a learner these changes have produced, especially when you read reports that suggest the difficulties learners have had in reading, writing and calculating. There is nothing that is as dangerous as a country whose education is in a state of perpetual repair. That is why today we are happy that you have undertaken to walk this path together with us.
Let me re-emphasise the obvious, because you have already alluded to the fact that the curriculum is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, and for it to work, an environmental alignment also needs to happen, so that the environment itself is relevant to the new ways of doing things.
Minister, you must remember that habits take a long time to die, and of course, words themselves are not deeds. So, because you've covered so many tracks, we would just like you please to bear in mind that, as you go on together with us in executing your duties, you must demarcate the role of a teacher between a teacher as a trade unionist and a teacher as a professional. We must also inculcate a sense of respect across the supply chain, and teachers, as you say, must teach ... [Interjections.]
Order, hon members! Order!
... and principals must crack the whip, and the authorities themselves must do their work.
The role of monitoring, evaluation and governance in every school cannot be emphasised enough, and for this role to be carried out, everyone in the chain of command needs to be empowered. It is hoped that the recommendations that have been introduced today will get us back to where we started in 1994, enforcing the culture of learning and teaching. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, hon Minister, the IFP supports your initiative to review the curriculum, but as the owners of the language I'm using would say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We'll wait and see whether what you have announced will bridge the gap between theory and implementation, because for a long time now our education system has been characterised by this widening gap between what we do here and the legislation that we formulate, and the implementation of that same policy.
Having said that, the IFP is not in the habit of saying "we told you so", but let's just go back and see what has characterised the system until now. You say we no longer speak of outcomes-based education, but what is the conceptual framework that we must now use if there's no OBE?
Let me say, looking back, that from its inception the OBE system has been ineffective, and the Minister will agree with that. It has been understood by neither the educators nor the district officials, nor even the top officials of your department. You ask them what OBE is, and they will scratch their heads. They will not just come out and tell you what it is. Perhaps it is for this reason that we welcome the Minister's simplistic and well-understood review of this curriculum. We welcome that.
We as the IFP did warn - I remember the Minister of Higher Education was still my chairperson in the committee - when this OBE was implemented, that it was not an appropriate education system for South Africa, due to the country's lack of resources such as libraries, laboratories and all the other things that go with the system. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Speaker, the Minister did not use all of her allocated 20 minutes, and I hope I'll be given the rest of her remaining minutes.
The UDM welcomes the overall direction of the Curriculum Review Process announced by the Minister. The intention to simplify the administrative load of teachers is a worthy objective and something that the UDM wholeheartedly supports. These curriculum changes are moving in the direction the UDM has been calling for, namely a back-to-basics approach to education. It should be obvious that what we need is for teachers to teach and for students to study.
We can only hope that these changes will signal the end of the road for the ruling party's disastrous flirtation with the so-called "outcomes-based education". Employers and universities report that many of the matriculants of this policy lack basic learning and comprehension skills.
The other two important issues which need urgent attention are: Firstly, government should reintroduce school inspectors, which is the only way to address the casual disdain for proper education prevalent at many schools.
Secondly, the current neglect of career advice at school level must be revised. Relegating such an important topic to the periphery of the curriculum is only contributing to the hundreds of thousands of matriculants who annually leave school without having an idea of the careers they intend to pursue. Thank you for the extra minutes.
Speaker, education's significance in reducing poverty and accelerating long-term economic growth makes it critical for government to be on top of challenges facing the sector. The ACDP commends the Minister on action taken in this regard. We support the decision to implement the recommendations of the task team and are impressed with government's commitment to immediate changes, where possible.
During the July debate on the budget for Education, the ACDP pointed out that:
One of the major problems with education today is that teachers are not allowed to be teachers. They are inundated with administration, lesson plans for every lesson, marking, assessments, and endless forms to fill out. Our children are assessed and assessed again, but they are not being taught. This rigid control dilutes the unique teaching ability of individual teachers and our children have become statistics and not learners.
The Minister's reassurance that the intention of the changes are: firstly, to simplify the administrative functions that teachers are responsible for; and secondly, to provide structured systemic support, is encouraging. The ACDP has always had serious concerns with the concept and the implementation of OBE and we, therefore, welcome these new developments. Thank you.
Speaker, education gives you tremendous power. We want to congratulate the Minister on taking the education system back to the basics, which are the three Rs.
The MF supports the collapsing of subjects. We believe it will become more focused because our concern is, most importantly, the practical implementation and transformation of this new system.
It is the end of the year, schools will be closing in the next 30 days, principals and teachers are preparing for examinations. When will legislation filter down; and how do principals get oriented to run the new school?
The practical implementation of collapsing the subjects means that the different teachers of different subjects will now be asked to teach different subjects. That is one of the problems teachers will be faced with. Secondly, the problem of the different text materials will, obviously, need to be revisited.
The MF, indeed, supports your notion and welcomes this new notion of putting an end to the old system of education. However, Minister, we would want you to be more proactive with schools and ensure that they are on board to deal with the new system. The MF will support this. [Applause.]
Mr Speaker, hon members, I suspect that a lot of the inputs we have had today were the result of prepared speeches gone horribly wrong because the Minister sprung a surprise on us. Well, I don't want to respond to everybody, but I would like to make a few comments on the speeches that were delivered here today.
In response to the hon Vukuza-Linda from Cope, I think it bears noting that the review committee drew its expertise not only from universities and practitioners, but from teacher unions themselves. So, to suggest that teachers must either be teachers or union members is a bit of a spurious debate. [Interjections.]
On the issue of the curriculum and policy research unit, Dr Kloppers- Lourens is correct and one of the things that the department is doing - you would know - is reorganising its organogram to include a section dedicated to curriculum and policy research.
I think it merits some mention that, as much as Mr Mpontshane from the IFP constantly refrains "we told you so", I do think that when you ask what outcomes-based education, OBE, is and what it isn't, and how confusing it all is, you would know better than me that when we say that, effectively, OBE is taken out of the curriculum by and large, that does not mean that there is substantive change to the curriculum because OBE is not about the curriculum, it's a methodology of teaching as opposed to what is in essence a curriculum. So, in that respect there is consistency and certainty. And, certainly, any radical changes to the curriculum would hamper our success as opposed to amplifying it.
I think the following points concerning what the review is need emphasis: Firstly, and many people have alluded to it, there is the removal of administrative as well as assessment burdens on teachers. I do think that that must be stressed. It's not to say that there won't be administrative or assessment type work, but these have been streamlined and, certainly, simplified in order to ensure that there is more teaching time as opposed to time spent doing these other things.
Certainly, teachers will benefit from the clear outcome that has been adopted from the report. That outcome is clear, uniform, definitive and direct communication from the department, not interpretations of those communications from the other ranks within our governance structure. Regarding the role of subject advisers, I think it is enormously welcome to teachers that there is a dedicated focus on their support role as opposed to, perhaps, an evaluation role.
With regard to the earlier introduction of the second language, English, I think that this is also a very positive measure. It certainly gives expression to the fact that when languages are introduced at a younger age it's easier for children to absorb those languages. So, by the time they graduate to tertiary level, where they will be primarily taking their lessons in English, they will be far more conversant in the language.
Lastly, let me just say that the Minister has said that the task team started a while ago. The one thing that people forget is that when the Minister assumed office it would have been so easy for her to sweep away what was old and to restart new processes, and so on. I think we need to give enormous credit to you, Minister, for looking at this properly, for sticking with it and then embracing the good things that have come out of this report. I think that that is something worthy of note and appreciation from this House. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.