Thank you, hon House Chair. Hon members MECs present, I am informed that the MEC for Education and Training from the North West is here, and I am also excited to acknowledge the presence here of our former Deputy President, Comrade Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. [Applause.]
Mdunge ngiyabonga ngesikhathi sakho. [Mdunge, thank you for your time.]
Distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen, let me thank the House Chair for the privilege I have been given of presenting my Budget Vote speech.
This indeed affords the national Department of Basic Education a platform to formally account for its activities in the 2011-12 financial year. We will also present the policy priorities and strategic response to key government tasks as outlined by President Jacob Zuma in his state of the nation address.
Minister Blade Nzimande reminded me during his Budget Vote speech that education constitutes more than 21% of the government's total allocated expenditure for the 2012-13 financial year.
The consolidated investment in the basic education sector, encompassing national and provincial education departments, makes education an important driver of government's transformation agenda. Our budget chest stands at R179,834 billion, almost R180 billion.
The overall budget for 2012-13 for the Department of Basic Education, Vote 15, has increased from R13,8 billion in 2011-12, to over R16,3 billion, which is an increase of more than R2,4 billion. We have allocated R22 million to Umalusi for 2012-13, which will reach R83 million in 2014-15, to cover its expanded mandate.
On earmarked amounts, there is an allocation of R520,9 million for the Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign. This campaign has provided more than 1,6 million adults with a chance to become numerate and literate in one of the official languages. In 2011, it registered 648 000 learners and currently it has more than 680 000 learners. The target is to reach 4,7 million adults by 2015-16.
We can confidently declare before the nation that further advances were made in pursuance of national educational goals. For 2012 and the second half of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, we will continue to use as an anchor the Action Plan to 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025, to consolidate our advances in transforming education.
This being the mid-term of our office, I must share with the people where we are in discharging our constitutional mandate. There is progress in spite of challenges. We have become more equitable and more pro-poor since apartheid. We've moved from the margin to the centre of learning, with over 12 million learners in more than 24 000 public schools.
We have been responsible in supplying no less than 365 000 educators for these future leaders for whom we are together opening "the doors of learning and of culture", as stated in the Freedom Charter. We have indeed doubled Grade R enrolment from 300 000 in 2003 to over 705 000 in 2011. We are very encouraged by the fact that more young people are completing Grade 9. There is an increase from 80% in 2003 to 88% in 2010. We are also informed by the General Household Survey that more young South African children are completing Grade 12.
School attendance is close to 100% for the basic compulsory band, in the 7- to 15-year age range. Nevertheless, we continue to be concerned by the information from the General Household Survey showing that just over 120 000 children in that band are out of school. We have requested provinces to look into this and address the matter.
By the same token, the drop-out rate in Grades 10 and 11 is of great concern and we're engaging as a sector with interventions for improving learner retention rates. The percentage of Grade 12 learners who qualify for Bachelor's studies has now increased to 24,3%, which places us in good stead to meet the target of 175 000.
Given the link between poverty and education, free schooling and school meals are part of government's pro-poor policies; this includes scholar transport. The number of learners in no-fee schools exceeds our 60% target. This year, 69,3% of learners are in more than 20 000 no-fee schools. The threshold target allocation for no-fee schools for operational expenditure has increased to R880 per learner, and the national per learner target amount for Quintile 1 schools is R960. Total expenditure for school allocation for no-fee schools at the national target level is projected to be in excess of R7,7 billion. Informed by government's antipoverty strategy, the National School Nutrition Programme Conditional Grant has increased from R327,7 million in 2012-13, to R4,907 billion.
With regard to the National Senior Certificate, NSC, examinations, there is evidence of progress in the pass rate of the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate. We must celebrate our achievements in regard to the target of improving the pass rate by 10% by 2014. This target was set after the alarming pass rate in 2009, which was 60%. In November 2011 we surpassed this target, which had been planned for 2014 three years ahead. The 2012 supplementary examinations have been completed and the results have been released. The overall pass rate combining the November 2011 and March 2012 examinations is now 72,7%. For this we thank all the persons and officials who made it possible. Preparations for the 2012 NSC examinations are on track.
We remain concerned about both the quality and number of passes in mathematics and science. Therefore we are implementing a new national strategy for mathematics, science and technology in education. It reinforces the Dinaledi Schools Programme, which has received a conditional grant of R99,7 million for 2012-13. In June 2012, we will convene a Mathematics and Science Indaba, with key education stakeholders involved in the teaching of mathematics and science. Concerns were raised about standards with the introduction of the new curriculum and we have given a fuller explanation on this matter in the packages given to members and our guests. Unfortunately we are unable to elaborate. I would have loved to do that, but because of time I won't be able to do so. That's why I have given you a full explanation of standards in education.
The high standards of the National Senior Certificate can be attested to. To obtain admission to university study for Bachelor degrees with the old Senior Certificate, a candidate had only to pass four subjects at 40% and two at 33,3%, but currently, under the National Senior Certificate, admission to Bachelor studies requires a pass in four subjects at 50% - I am not sure what a 50% campaign is all about because we are already there - and the remaining subjects at 30%, provided that the home language subject is passed at 40% and the language of learning and teaching at 30%. The NSC requires a candidate to offer seven subjects, while the old Senior Certificate required only six subjects.
Again, we benchmark our question papers as a credible mechanism to ensure that our national question papers are internationally comparable and are of a high standard and quality. In 2007, question papers for 10 major subjects were evaluated by three assessment bodies, namely the Cambridge International Examinations, Scottish Qualifications Authority and Board of Studies New South Wales. There is consensus among these institutions, and Higher Education South Africa, Hesa, that by international standards our question papers are well designed and assess what they purport to assess.
With regard to the strategic interventions, we have identified four priority areas for 2012-13. They influence and are influenced by the strategic imperative to make schools work, to make principals manage the curriculum, to make teachers teach and learners read, write and count. It is these four strategic interventions that make it more critical for this august House to support the Basic Education allocation. I hope the DA has not been instructed not to support the Vote, as usual. This time we will agree that it is very important that they support it, unless they have been instructed not to.
In addition to our ongoing focus on the three Ts, we continue to focus on the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, Caps, annual national assessments, textbooks and infrastructure. Through these programmes we want to maximise learner performance, school by school and classroom by classroom.
With regard to the curriculum, as affirmed last year, the 2012 focus is on the prudent implementation of the revised Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, starting with Grades 1 to 3 and Grade 10. We have provided orientation for more than 130 000 teachers and 2 810 subject advisers on the Caps documents.
In improving learner attainment, we have developed the instruments that we are using, and we are implementing the National Strategy for Learner Attainment Framework for Grades R to 12; the Curriculum Coverage Monitoring Tool; and a school-based Learner Attainment Improvement Strategy because we did realise that the sector continues to be challenged by the lack of completion of the curriculum and all sorts of things.
The strategy on early childhood development, ECD, is in place. We are finalising the 0-4 curriculum for all ECD sites and realigning resource packages with Caps for Grade R. An audit of Grade R enrolment at ECD centres is under way. We are poised to meet the target of full coverage for Grade R by 2014.
Our annual national assessments, ANAs, monitor performance of learners in the critical foundational skills of literacy and numeracy. Following the baseline ANA conducted in February 2011, we have provided feedback to teachers. This has taken the form of reports and high-quality test exemplars. They should strengthen school-based assessment and deepen children's competencies and confidence in tackling their work. An allocation of R75 million to strengthen the existing programme and expand assessments to include Grade 9 has been secured for 2013-14, and will reach R160 million in 2014-15. Also, September 2012 is the date for the second round of ANAs. We again encourage parents and teachers to prepare adequately for the ANA so that we can see improvement with regard to performance in the lower grades.
With regard to workbooks, in 2012 we will expand the provision of "texts", which is a component of the three Ts. We have provided high-quality workbooks to six million learners in the country. We have also conducted a survey of workbook utilisation. We have extended the National Workbook Programme to cover Grades 7, 8 and 9. The allocation for the 2012-13 financial year amounts to R811 million for expanding the distribution of workbooks to Grade 9 learners. In 2012 we are providing 54 million books to learners, at no cost to the parents or learner. We think this is history in the making and we are very proud of this achievement. [Applause.]
In line with our commitment to inclusive education, workbooks for Grades 1 to 6 and 7 have been adapted and are currently being printed in Braille. We're attending to concerns raised, including those pertaining to thorny matters around packaging, delivery and quantities. As serious concerns have been raised about this programme, we have provided a detailed response and explanation in your packages. Again we will not be able to give you a full report as to how this programme has to be managed.
With regard to textbooks, a national catalogue for Grades 1 to 3 and 10 has been developed and distributed to provinces for procurement of core materials for schools. A national catalogue for Grades 4 to 6 and 11 is being developed and will be finalised in June and July 2012. The development of a national catalogue for Grades 7 to 9 and 12 will be finalised during the current financial year.
We have distributed 4 424 500 physical science and mathematics supplementary textbooks to all Grade 10 to 12 learners, in partnership with the Shuttleworth Foundation.
With regard to infrastructure, through the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative, Asidi, we continue to do more to fast- track provision and improvement of school infrastructure. This programme has been given a further boost by being included in the work of the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission.
The total education infrastructure grant allocation for the financial year is R5,4 billion. During adjustments, this budget was increased to R5,7 billion. Total spending on the adjusted budget, as at the end of March 2012, was R5,2 billion. This spending is 12% higher than the 80% spending reported in 2010-11. The total budget allocation for the education infrastructure grant in the 2012-13 financial year is R5,2 billion. This budget is almost R93 million more than the adjusted budget.
The department has the following targets to meet through Asidi: the eradication of 496 inappropriate structures nationally; the provision of basic water to 1 257 schools; the provision of basic sanitation to 868 schools; and the electrification of 878 schools. Currently, 50 inappropriate schools are undergoing construction for completion by the end of 2012, and will be ready for occupation in 2013.
In 2011-12, 55 schools were provided with water, 115 with sanitation and 48 with electrification. There are capacity challenges with implementing agents and contractors, and this has resulted in programme delays. However, these are being rigorously tackled. We are in the process of putting together framework agreements that are intended to provide more implementing agents, built environment professionals and contractors to the sector.
In partnership with the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and other partners in education, on 10 April 2012 we launched 94 school infrastructure projects as part of International Mandela Day. We invite everybody to make this a success by supporting the schools of their choice. We request all South Africans to go to their schools to do something - just take a pen!
Ubabingelele, ubavakashele, ubakhuthaze nje. [You should visit them, greet them and generally encourage them.]
We really call upon all South Africans to go to their old schools and see what they can do. Together we must and will fulfil the greatest birthday wish for Madiba - we agree with you, member - and sing in unity in celebration of this great icon of our time, come 18 July. We say, "Take action, inspire change and make every day a Mandela Day!" In this unique way we will preserve his towering legacy.
In 2012-14 we will also invest more energy in those critical areas influencing the successful implementation of Caps, ANA, workbook infrastructure and other priorities. Those critical areas are teachers, the National Educational Evaluation and Development Unit, Needu, ICT and the Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit.
We believe that our systems are only as good as their teachers; teachers are at the heart of curriculum delivery; good teaching is the key to unlocking excellence in learner performance; and continuous professional development of teachers continues to be critical. We call upon teachers to be in school, in class, on time, teaching for at least seven hours a day, as this remains fundamental.
At national level we oversee the implementation of the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development that we launched in April 2011. For 2012-13, provinces have set aside over R3 billion for teacher development. An audit process to support the functionality of teacher resource centres will be conducted in 2012-13. This will include a scoping for the development of new centres. There are currently 144 teacher centres in the country. We are excited to announce that we've entered into a memorandum of understanding with all teacher unions - I know the opposition will say Sadtu - to strengthen their capacity in teacher development so as to complement our efforts.
We will attend to structural issues impacting on performance in the sector, like teacher supply and utilisation. With colleagues from the provinces, we are working hard to ensure that all vacant posts in schools are filled timeously. Accountability across the system is key.
A process is under way at the Education Labour Relations Council, ELRC, to streamline the Integrated Quality Management System to improve evaluation of educators' performance. This is being done as part of a broad accountability process for the sector. I thought you would applaud this one, for it is a big breakthrough. [Applause.] It didn't come easily. You can ask people from the ELRC. An integrated assessment instrument to improve the performance of principals, deputy principals and teachers is in its final stages of negotiations, and we hope to announce soon ... [Interjections.] We hope so too. [Laughter.]
The National Education Evaluation and Development Unit, Needu, is another element of our accountability system. We gazetted the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit Bill in December 2011. We thank you for the valuable comments received. Needu is a very useful agency, meant to help us to evaluate the quality of support schools have received, and more importantly, assess and report on the state of schools in our country, in particular the quality of school leadership, teaching and learning. Dr Nick Taylor, the former CEO of JET Education Services and current member of Umalusi Standards Committee, became the new CEO on 1 May 2012. He replaces Prof John Volmink.
Uhambile ngoba ugugile. [He left due to retirement.]
For 2012-13, Needu has been allocated R12,5 million. [Interjections.]
Musa ukungiphazamisa. [Do not disturb me.]
Other allocations in the 2012-13 financial year on earmarked amounts include R37 million for the Integrated Quality Management System, IQMS, and R21,7 million for systemic evaluation. For 2012-13, the Funza Lushaka Bursary scheme has been allocated R671,9 million. We really invite all South Africans to make teaching their profession of choice. Indeed, it is one of the greatest professions that we can tell our children to go into.
With regard to ICT initiatives, the implementation of the Teacher Laptop Initiative is back on track, with more teachers being enabled to access this resource. Work on a new funding model and procurement and administration processes to strengthen the initiative is going very well. During the latter part of the year we will be making what we think is a very exciting announcement on the Teacher Laptop Initiative.
The good news is that broader plans for using ICT to enhance learning and teaching are gathering steam. Our department, together with the Department of Communications, has developed a connectivity plan providing a comprehensive framework for achieving cost-effective and efficient connectivity for all schools. The directors-general of the two departments and provincial heads of departments signed the Telkom Master Services Agreement on 27 March 2012, for Phase 1 implementation of the connectivity for schools. The first phase will provide connectivity to 1 650 schools.
In 2011, 2 334 schools were connected to the Internet for the purpose of teaching and learning, while 7 008 schools were using the Internet for administration purposes. The establishment of nine ICT resource centres, one per province, sponsored by the Vodacom Foundation, is expected to accelerate training of teachers in the use of ICT to support teaching and learning.
As promised last year, we have indeed established a Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit. With its strategic positioning, we were able to prioritise support for underperforming districts by targeting schools and classrooms. By the end of the second quarter of 2011 we had reached 4 612 schools.
Under its first head, Mr Ronald Swartz, and later Mrs Palesa Tyobeka, the unit has been working with provinces to support the 18 underperforming districts in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. It is also monitoring the implementation of district improvement and school improvement plans.
To further improve district support to schools, in March 2012 we published for comment a policy on the organisation, roles and responsibilities of education districts.
As far as provinces are concerned, one of the major projects we have initiated is the alignment of provincial annual performance plans with our National Action Plan. We are hard at work restoring stability and service delivery in the provinces under section 100(1)(b) of the Constitution. These provinces are Limpopo and the Eastern Cape. The Deputy Minister will elaborate on work done in this area.
With regard to learner wellness, in order to reduce health and social barriers to learning, we are working very closely with the Department of Health in expanding and strengthening school health services. The HIV and Aids Life Skills Education Conditional Grant for 2012-13 stands at R208,7 million. To broaden the HIV and Aids programme and become the Integrated School Health Programme, we aim to incrementally provide school health services to all learners over the next five years.
With regard to learner safety, we continue to be concerned by different acts of violence affecting our children both inside and outside our schools. We are very hopeful that, through the Inter-Ministerial Committee established by Cabinet, work in this very important area will improve. More than 9 000 schools are linked to police stations. This year, we aim to link an additional 9 000 schools.
On school sports, we are receiving positive reports on school sports taking place on Wednesdays as part of "Magnificent Wednesday". To infuse more life into the SA Schools Choral Eisteddfod, we have trained a total of 359 adjudicators ... [Interjections.]
Hon Minister, you have a minute left.
Let me conclude then, Chair. [Laughter.] Really, Chair, with due respect, I would like to acknowledge and thank my Deputy Minister for all his support. I think the members will read the full text for themselves.
I would also like to thank the director-general and the staff, and to acknowledge Mr Mmipe Mokgehle, the winner of the National Teaching Awards, and the presence of my mother - my first teacher, literarily - who taught me in Grade 1 at school. [Applause.] I used to follow her to her class when I was in Grade 1. [Applause.] I also thank my sister, who is a teacher by profession too. Thank you very much, Chair. [Applause.]
Hon Chairperson, Minister of Basic Education, Deputy Minister, Members of Parliament, director-general and staff, and distinguished guests in the gallery, I greet you.
The goals, principles and values that inform our policy framework are not the sole property of the ANC. They are a product of the social, educational and political struggle against apartheid, and represent the collective vision and wisdom of the Mass Democratic Movement.
There is enough evidence to outline the challenges in the basic education system. Research, published and unpublished, reliable and unreliable, informed and uninformed, relays all the forms of challenges in the sector. Most of the evidence does not raise issues other than what the ANC recognised and embodied in the Polokwane resolutions. These resolutions were made in a bid to find ways to make further improvements to our education system. There is therefore enough evidence of the nature and scope of the challenges facing our education system, as portrayed in the action plan of the department. The Minister has said as much.
As the ANC, we therefore maintain that it is not productive to continually lament the challenges facing the system. We should rather put measures in place to address these challenges.
At the recent Umalusi international conference we also saw academics relaying the issues that compromise standards in our education system, either in teaching, learning, assessment, aspects relating to the use of language in teaching, or achievement. Our observation was that the department could explore some of the issues raised during the Umalusi conference.
As the ANC, we present the 2012 Budget Vote based on the foundation laid by the President in his 2012 state of the nation address. The President did not give new strategic priorities that the Department of Basic Education should focus on, but instead highlighted the progress, and the challenges that required more focused attention. We therefore say that this budget is an interventionist one.
Chairperson, on the progress front, we as the ANC present the Vote, knowing that we, as a nation, are proud that the Millennium Development Goal report shows that South Africa is on track in ensuring that by 2015, children everywhere in South Africa, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary school, as stated by the Minister.
The net enrolment rate and the proportion of pupils starting Grade 1, who reach the last grade of primary school have increased, while through the Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy project the literacy rate of the 15- to 24-year- olds is also steadily improving.
The gender parity gap between girls and boys in primary and secondary schools is closing. The indicators show that at the primary school level the gender parity index, GPI, gap stands at 0,96%. Initiatives to improve access and retention like the National School Nutrition Programme, no-fee schools, workbook projects, expansion of Grade R and other programmes are really assisting with keeping our children at school.
We are also satisfied that the Caps processes have been finalised and the implementation thereof is going well, with only a few glitches, particularly in the orientation and training of educators, including some receiving the wrong textbooks or none at all. Learners cannot do anything without textbooks.
Who would not appreciate the good showing by the class of 2011 with their 72% matric pass rate? Our learners continue to surpass the expectations of many, shocking the prophets of doom in the process. We encourage the department to intensify the preparation of the class of 2012 at an early stage so that we remain above the 70% mark.
Chairperson, we are happy that the laptop issue is on track. This matter has constantly come up in our committee deliberations and we feel that the obstacles in regard to the matter should be dealt with. Teachers need these laptops for quality education.
The Minister might be aware that in one of our committee meetings in April 2012 we called her department and the Department of Higher Education and Training, as well as Umalusi, to meet with us so that we could have an understanding of the kind of matric learner the institutions of higher education expect from Basic Education. We wanted to create a space for conversation where academics and the departments did not speak past each other with regard to this matter, because of the potential damage it might cause our learners.
Pertinent issues were raised, including the standards, and the rationale behind the subjects of life orientation and mathematical literacy. Life orientation is not recognised in the point system of the universities' admission process. Also, mathematics literacy is said to erode the number of potential learners who can do mathematics and it is not recognised when seeking a place to study at university.
At this point we are sitting with a situation where institutions of higher learning subject learners to national benchmark tests, NBTs. While we are constantly being assured that the NBT is meant to place learners in the correct programmes, the reality out there suggests otherwise.
The increase of the 2012-13 Budget to R16,3 billion is a sure bet for confronting many more sector challenges that still face the department. We believe that the government's commitment to making basic education a top priority is reflected in the department's budget, which continues to take up a large proportion of government spending and receives a considerable share of additional allocations.
The point of departure of the 2012 Basic Education Vote is premised on the fact that the department is well aware of the challenges in the sector, particularly with regard to learner performance. Based on the mandate of the ANC and the findings of the different assessments the department has embarked on, we are sure that the department is able to pronounce on the relevant responsive initiatives that will further improve learner performance in the near future.
Over the past three years the department has embarked on an extensive process of planning and aligning programmes in the interest of improving the delivery of education. The Department of Basic Education has developed a long-term sector plan entitled The Action Plan to 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025. It is around this plan and the Delivery Agreement for Outcome 1 that the department and its entities are forging ahead in addressing the many challenges. The sector plan stabilises the policy direction of the department and the focus on strengthening and consolidating the initiatives through responsive interventions.
We as the ANC are happy that the issue of quality and learner performance is constantly on the radar in the Action Plan, as well as in the public domain. In our view, the plan has given the department a greater feeling of coherence and purpose than it has had in the past. We believe that the department is advancing in the right direction. The ANC welcomes the range of interventions that the budget proposes in order to strengthen the delivery of quality education.
We welcome the substantial expansion of government expenditure on Grade R in public schools over recent years. This has resulted in significant progress towards universal access to Grade R. However, the quality of the provision of Grade R at disadvantaged schools remains a concern. It is also a matter of concern that, despite the substantial increase in Grade R expenditure, the nominal amount allocated per Grade R child is significantly less than the per capita allocation for primary and secondary schools. While education provision efforts for these children are visible, the manner of interdepartmental co-ordination for Grade R education is still worrisome. We commend the department's strategy to revise the Grade R funding in order to deal with existing policy and implementation discrepancies.
For three years running, the President has been calling for our teachers to be in class, on time, with textbooks, teaching. This shows that something is going wrong in the teaching profession. Issues have been constantly reported relating to teacher absence from school; teachers being at school, but not in the classroom; and little written work being given to learners. While our site visits to schools have not revealed any anomaly in regard to teacher absence and teaching, the textbook challenge is enormous, and will be alluded to by the Whip.
Accountability in the day-to-day duties of our teachers has been strongly associated with pockets of neglect. Some are labelled as teachers who put union activities ahead of the call of duty. If we can intensify interventions to make sure that our teachers indeed respect the call of duty, we will have done great justice to learners.
The opportunity that our learners will have to write the annual national assessments, ANAs, will keep giving us feedback on where we are in regard to Grades 3, 6 and 9. We were happy at the announcement of the ANA results in 2011, and the department must take the results as a reflection of where the learner and teacher performance problems are.
However, our oversight visits to the Free State in 2011, and this year to Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape reveal that schools do not take the opportunity to learn what the ANA results can teach them. In the Free State we encountered a principal who did not even know how his school performed in the ANAs. While his school did not perform well in the ANAs, it was doubtful that he knew what to do to improve teaching, learning and learner performance. In Mpumalanga, we encountered a situation where schools were copying turnaround strategies from other schools verbatim, and there was a clear indication that they did not understand how they would implement those strategies. While the ANAs are a good gesture, their aim of assisting teachers, principals and parents to support children is proving elusive at some schools, because they do not thoroughly analyse the results.
We are pleased to see the budget allocation focusing on the utilisation of the ANAs to define interventions at schools and in districts. The allocation over the Medium-Term Economic Framework, MTEF, period is R160 million. Our duty will then be to monitor this intervention intensely to ensure that it is implemented as planned.
Education remains a societal issue. We are happy that the department has seen fit to continue intensifying the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, QLTC. We need every stakeholder in education to understand his or her role. However, our findings in Mpumalanga in January showed that districts are not assisting schools in this regard. Where QLTC committees have been formed, no activity or training has taken place. We are worried that the intended aim of the QLTC may be undermined if we do not swiftly enter the fray and assist our districts. We are encouraged, however, by the interaction with and contributions by other stakeholders through social contracts and accords with the business community and labour unions - that is at national level.
We commend the department for prioritising the implementation of a credible mathematics, science and technology strategy. We know that there is room for improvement in these areas, if the strategy is well implemented. We encourage the department to keep focused on the implementation of the strategy so that we can turn the situation around.
We have noted the Auditor-General's reports on provincial spending since 2009. The reports show that most provinces were not in good standing. While the national department receives unqualified audit reports, only a few provinces do well. Issues of internal controls are constantly raised.
While the 2010-11 Auditor-General's report shows improvement and stability in some provinces, the Eastern Cape remains in the red. As a committee we feel that there is room for improvement and we thank the national department for assisting in this regard, as it is currently doing.
What makes matters worse is that the problems of poorly performing provinces are compounded by the phenomenon of temporary teachers and temporary classroom structures. While we have seen that the temporary teacher issue was caused by a lack of thorough consideration at the beginning while addressing the staff establishment, we are worried that the temporary structure issue may suffer the same fate.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the Deputy Minister, the director- general, the senior officials of the department, the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, Umalusi, the SA Council for Educators, Sace, and the Education Labour Relations Council, ELRC, for the fruitful deliberations on the strategic plans and the anticipated allocations.
I would like to thank Minister for the leadership she provides, including the management in her department and provincial departments.
I would also like to thank the hon members of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education and our core staff for their spirit of co-operation and their professionalism in working together. This has assured the committee that, "working together, we can do more".
The ANC supports the Budget Vote. Thank you. [Applause.]
Chairperson, this speech is dedicated to every truly professional and committed education practitioner in South Africa. It is to their dedication and excellence that we owe our hope for the future.
In every state of the nation address since his inauguration, President Zuma has emphasised the importance of basic education. In 2011, he spoke of the:
Triple T: Teachers, Textbooks and Time, we reiterate our call that teachers must be at school, in class, on time, teaching for at least seven hours a day.
Every speaker has alluded to that.
Minister, I refer you to the Annual Performance Plan of your department for 2012-13. There are glaring and serious omissions from the plan with respect to all three Ts: teachers, textbooks and time. The omissions do not relate only to the performance plan, but are all too often evident in the implementation of the plan.
My focus is first on teachers. The 2007 McKinsey report, entitled: How the World's Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top, states that three things matter most. The first of these is getting the right people to become teachers.
The target set in the performance plan for the attraction of new teachers is entirely inadequate. The Centre for Development and Enterprise has shown that South Africa needs about 25 000 new teachers each year. The department, however, plans the uptake of a total of only 6 800 teachers this financial year - approximately one third of South Africa's needs.
The education sector we know is currently fraught with instability, insecurity, maladministration, union interference and the lack of role models in many cases. Teaching as a profession has declined in attractiveness. I again want to refer to McKinsey, who states with respect to getting the right people to become teachers, that the top performing systems studied internationally recruit their teachers from the top third of each cohort of school-leavers - it is the top 5% in South Korea and the top 10% in Finland.
The primary tool used by our department to attract new teachers is the awarding of bursaries to any interested school-leaver, the Funza Lushaka scheme. There is no screening system in place to determine whether those learners studying to become teachers will ever become good, effective teachers. Why, Minister, can't screening and the attraction of the top cohort of learners be done here? Why are we not learning from international best practice? Why are we not following what is a relatively simple, but very effective way to improve our teaching cohort?
Chairperson, we refer to teaching as a profession, and young teachers, straight out of university, cannot be considered professional teachers. The McKinsey report states, and I quote:
The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.
It lists developing teachers into effective instructors as one of the three most important things, those that matter most.
Why then has the department in its strategic plan not set any target at all for the professional development of teachers? An Education Labour Relations Council declaration in 2009 committed to teachers' participating in 80 hours of professional development per annum. In last year's strategic plan, 60 hours of professional development activity per teacher per annum was targeted. This year, Minister, despite R3 billion being allocated to this in the provinces, the target for professional development for teachers has been dropped completely.
Disturbingly, with respect to professional development, the McKinsey report dismisses the workshop type of development currently employed in South Africa as ineffective. In the best systems internationally, to which we surely aspire, expert teachers are trained in how to coach other teachers, enter classrooms to observe teachers, give feedback, model instruction and share planning. Singapore appoints master teachers to lead the coaching and development of teachers in each of its schools. England employed a similar system and dramatically improved its numeracy and literacy outcomes in just three years.
The South African Council for Educators, Sace, has been tasked with overseeing the professional development of teachers in South Africa. We are told that they will be ready to roll out their programme in January 2013. Certainly, from the details supplied on Tuesday at the portfolio committee meeting, the responsible members of Sace have not read the McKinsey report, and have not studied international best practice. We suggest, Minister, that you encourage them to do so before implementation of the very complex, but most likely ineffective programme they suggest.
Minister, you don't set targets for those aspects of teaching that are obvious, or should be obvious, those that every child should take as a given. Why are there no targets requiring the right numbers of teachers at a schools, and the right teacher for every class? In the Eastern Cape, my home province, no advertisements for Post Level 1 teachers have appeared for more than six years. We understand that there are ghost teachers on the payroll. We understand, too, that the issue of excess teachers must be resolved. However, Minister, political determination must outweigh and outmuscle union pressure in this regard.
Ninety-one per cent of the Eastern Cape budget is being spent on salaries, and yet we cannot appoint teachers, even Funza Lushaka graduates, other than on a temporary basis. And those temporary teachers are struggling to have their contracts renewed and to be paid. The situation is simply untenable.
The Leader of the Opposition recently walked 12 km with the pupils of Zweledinga High School near Queenstown in the Eastern Cape. These children walk this distance to school every day, expecting quality education. Their principal is a committed man; he increased the pass rate at his school from 30% in 2010, to 76% in 2011. He has now lost his science teacher, a temporary contract that has not been renewed. He lamented that he would simply, in his words, become a "yo-yo principal" - up one year, down the next. Should he have to accept this? Should the children who walk 12 km to school every day, braving all weather conditions, have to accept this?
The shortage of maths and science teachers in South Africa has often been bemoaned, most often justifiably so. In the Eastern Cape again, the headlines today state that many learners have not received any maths and science tuition at all this year! A study carried out in 2005, Minister, found that almost 17 000 teachers in the Eastern Cape were qualified to teach mathematics, but only 7 000 teachers were actually teaching the subject in the province. Minister, your department has no system in place to determine whether the right teachers are teaching the subject. This is a serious failing and must be addressed with urgency.
Textbooks have made the front page of every major newspaper over the past few weeks. They make the McKinsey list as one of the three things that matter most. They will ensure that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child.
Strangely, Minister, your department's target for learners who have their own textbook for each subject is only 85%. Why is every child not entitled to a textbook? How are 15% of our learners or 1,95 million children supposed to learn effectively without access to a textbook? Of course, in practice, the number of children in South Africa without textbooks is many millions more than that.
The Sunday Times reported this week that, while thousands of Eastern Cape pupils struggled through last year without textbooks, three tons of new books worth millions of rands were dumped at a warehouse for recycling. The situation in the Free State education system has been described as chaotic, with schools in at least three areas not yet having received a single book this year. In KwaZulu-Natal, poor schools without textbooks have to spend thousands on photocopying books for learners.
In Limpopo, the national department has the responsibility of ensuring delivery of textbooks. Legal action has been taken against the department because it has not even ordered textbooks for schools that are not section 21 schools in the province - almost halfway through the school year! More than 90% of the schools in Limpopo are affected. We were astonished, Minister, that you were opposing this action. Opposing action to ensure ordering and delivery of textbooks? Further, you labelled the action a massive waste of time. The judgment was delivered this morning by Judge Jody Kollapen. He found that the Department of Basic Education's failure to provide textbooks was unlawful and violated the Constitution.
I was in Limpopo yesterday. I met with school principals who are struggling along, making copies of pages from publishers' promotional copies of textbooks, but with adequate funding to make copies only for their teachers, and not for their pupils.
Grade 10 pupils in Limpopo should have been well versed in the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, Caps, by now. Their assessment commences on 21 May - less than a week from now.
One of the principals told me that he expected that the standards of the tests in the province would be lowered to allow learners to pass. And he suggested that this would have to be done at the end of the year as well. The suggestion is understandable, but entirely unacceptable. Minister, your catch-up plan will have to be structured and funded to ensue that the opportunities open to the affected learners are not lost through this administrative bungle, and that standards are not lowered to accept mediocrity. We will be monitoring the situation closely.
Chairperson, pertaining to time issues, the last study on teacher absenteeism was carried out in 2009. The average rate of absenteeism was 8%, almost three times the acceptable absenteeism rate, equating to 16 days of teaching lost per educator per year.
There is no target dealing with the control and reduction of absenteeism in the performance plan. The director-general stated that no target could be set, since no baseline exists, and that we cannot set targets without data or any means to measure. As Prof Jonathan Jansen says, the data or means to measure must be found for teachers, textbooks and time - not a pretty picture.
If South Africa is to become truly great, if redress is truly to occur, and if South Africans are truly to be freed from the cycle of poverty, Minister, it is essential that education must become great. Mediocrity is not an option. Your government and your department have that responsibility. You can be assured that the DA will support your efforts. However, we will never accept that our country and our children's future is compromised by what is sadly a seriously faltering system in need of repair. [Applause.]
Chairperson, if I have time, I am going to respond to that question. Hon Chair, South African parents have been waiting for 18 years to get quality education for their children. All they get, instead, are promises accompanied by glaring inefficiencies.
Education is lurching from crisis to crisis and much of the time of the Department of Education is spent on crisis management and damage control. It is very painful for us to be focused on failures, not because we want to dwell on them, but because we need them to be addressed with speed.
The foundation phase in postapartheid South Africa has to be the most important area of focus. It stands to reason that children must be made ready for schooling in order for them to benefit from receiving formal education. Yet, to the horror of Cope, as well as the dismay of mainly black parents, provinces in 2010-11 inexplicably decreased their spending on the foundation phase. The impact of this on the performance of learners is going to be very costly. Is this move supported by the national department? We would like to know. It is very important.
Equitable and progressive education begins with foundation education that is well supported and available to all. We in Cope have always understood that assessing foundation education was a national priority outcome. Why are provinces not aligning their objectives with those of the national department? On the delivery of textbooks, the Minister has been taken to court by parents and the Equal Education nongovernmental organisation, for failing to deliver textbooks in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo provinces. The citizens of these two provinces are asking the government why they are being targeted for getting the short end of the stick. To rub salt into their wounds, textbooks are being discovered dumped in warehouses or sold off for next to nothing to business people. What kind of monitoring is in place to ensure that consignments of purchased books are delivered in their entirety?
South Africa has a system of co-operative governance and this should be supportive of joint monitoring by portfolio committees at the national and provincial levels. It seems to us in Cope that legislative oversight mechanisms are underdeveloped and that government does not have a clue about what is going on until the problem is exposed in the media.
We in Cope are very supportive of a free and unencumbered media, because we approve of futile and fruitless expenditure being exposed. The sad part is that government takes little or no action against those who are pulling down our education system.
Prof Habib is so frustrated, and he is right, of course, to think that the department has schizophrenia. What the department is seeing and what the rest of society is experiencing in respect of education do not seem to correlate.
The implementation of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, Caps, is once again confusing teachers, as well as learners, who are having timetable challenges. One teacher told mourners at the funeral of a colleague, for example, that his colleagues were running away from Caps. He explained that while the teaching fraternity were still grappling with outcomes-based education, the department had introduced a new curriculum. He painted a dismal picture of an education system that was not moving forward at all, and he was right.
The need to open colleges of education to provide educators with short in- service courses is of paramount importance. Educators need to feel comfortable about a curriculum in order to teach that curriculum. We have always called for the reopening of colleges of education and we do so once again.
You will understand this issue if we explain it further. According to the General Household Survey of 2009, 44,3% of children in the age bracket 7 to 24 years in Mpumalanga and 42,6% in the North West were found not to be studying in 2009. The primary reason was the lack of money. What criteria are used by the department in the no-fee school system? What progress has been made by the department with reducing the number of quintiles to accommodate a greater number of learners?
If only half of our learners are accessing education, what kind of future will they have and what kind of economic growth will we have? [Time expired.][Applause.]
Hon Chairperson and hon Ministers, we have looked at the department's strategic plan and we have examined its performance plans. All these are excellent documents containing excellent intentions and objectives. The hon Minister thus deserves our honest and critical assessment of the system without, of course, our adopting a holier-than- thou attitude.
My contribution to this debate is going to be based on the following four themes: uncertainty as a result of conflicting public statements; mismanagement as a result of educationally unsound policies; implementation issues leading to paralysis; and lastly, infrastructural backlogs.
Firstly, the director-general made a bold claim during one of our committee briefings that the system was stabilising. I am not querying this claim, but the system cannot stabilise if it continues to struggle under conflicting views on education coming from members of the executive.
For example, the President of the country announced during his state of the nation address a year ago that colleges of education were going to be reopened. The IFP welcomed this announcement, as we recognised, and still do, that the early childhood development, ECD, phase desperately needs appropriately trained teachers for this level. But colleges remain closed. Why? This is because the Minister of Higher Education and Training, hon Nzimande, subsequently contradicted the President and said that colleges were not going to be opened. What is the result? The ECD phase continues to suffer as a consequence of this dithering.
The second example, among other examples, is the Eastern Cape intervention. Initially, the President wanted the head of the department there, Mr Modidima Mannya, to remain whereas you, hon Minister, wanted his immediate dismissal - supported by the unions, of course. Let us not forget the stoking hand of the provincial executive committee, PEC, of the ANC. Surely uncertainty is the greatest enemy of stability.
Our second biggest problem is management at all levels, but most acutely at provincial, district and school levels. The IFP firmly believes that the management of the system can be improved if we, inter alia, do the following, and I know that what I am going to say now may sound very unpalatable and provoke some members, particularly those from this side, excluding Ministers, of course!
Firstly, let us bring back employment on merit and throw cronyism and nepotism out of the window. Let Luthuli House rethink the cadre deployment policy very carefully and assess how it affects the system. [Interjections.] There you are - I have said it already! We are not against the policy per se, but by reviewing it we have to look for skilled and competent people who can do the job, which is generally not the case at present.
Secondly, let us review the interviewing processes. Union representation on interview panels must be removed. Most often, managers who have come through this process lack the most important ingredients necessary for effective leadership, which are authority and peer respect. Timidity and fear step in instead. Accountability suffers and the system crumbles.
According to the strategic overview, one of the objectives of the department is to ensure access to quality education by reviewing and refining the areas that do not contribute to quality education. The pedagogical situation is not similar to the factory floor situation. Let us use terms and concepts fit for and relevant to the education system. We do not believe that terms like "site stewards" are relevant to our schooling system. [Interjections.]
This brings me to another challenge, which is implementation. Many programmes that are meant to improve the quality of education are languishing in educational limbo, for instance, performance agreements for principals and deputy principals. It has been almost three years since the agreements were signed. The question is: Who is holding the process to ransom? The head of the Education Labour Relations Council, ELRC, cannot tell us. Yet the Minister regards this performance agreement as key to the achievement of quality education, as we also do.
The IFP supports the Budget Vote. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Chairperson, Minister, Deputy Minister, and Members of Parliament, the challenge facing South Africa today is the fact that when we consider this particular Budget Vote, we all know we are spending a vast amount of taxpayers' money to provide quality education. Yet we are faced with questions about the inadequacies and shortfalls in various aspects of our education system.
Despite some pockets of success in the 2011 matric pass rates, the reality is that our matriculation pass rates are not at acceptable levels. A vast number of school-going learners and matriculants show disturbing trends in so far as functional literacy and numeracy are concerned.
Making matters worse is the fact that thousands of South African children arrive at school desperately hungry or malnourished, making it difficult for them to focus in class. The school feeding scheme, which was intended to address this problem, is riddled with problems in the provinces that need it most, such as the Eastern Cape.
It is no exaggeration to state that freedom from slavery and poverty is acquired by conquest, and not by gift. Our best weapon for the attainment of freedom from slavery - let me rather say subtle slavery - and poverty is education. To support this, allow me to quote the wise words of Martin Luther King Jr:
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
[Interjections.] As long as there is poverty in the world, no one can be totally healthy. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. I am what I am, because you are what you are.
The other sad reality about our schools is that they have become unsafe environments. The crime, violence, sexual assault and substance abuse that have gained a foothold in many communities have filtered into our schools. As every move at school is unsafe for our children, we must do everything in our power to ensure that schools become havens of stability. [Interjections.]
The UDM supports the Budget Vote, but I need one more minute to finish my work. I plead with you, Chairperson, for one more minute! Half a minute! Thank you. [Laughter.] [Applause.]
Thank you. No, hon member, your time has expired. [Applause.] [Laughter.]
Hon Chairperson, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon chairperson of the portfolio committee, hon members, honoured guests, and ladies and gentlemen, many people attest to the vital roles that teachers play in the lives of the learners in their classrooms and the delivery of the curriculum. They are best known for the role of educating the students that are placed in their care. Beyond that, teachers set the learning tone in classrooms, build a warm environment, mentor and nurture learners, become role models, and look and listen for signs of barriers that may hamper learning. Moreover, the teacher must be able to handle the dynamism that flows from the diversity of learners, either in learning abilities or in culture.
In essence, teachers are more than just figures who stand in front of learners. Teaching, according to scholars, should be a combination of information-dispensing, custodial child care and sorting out academically inclined students from others. Therefore, teaching needs a combination of different disciplines that a teacher must master. The disciplines must be prepared at the training recruitment level and where they are lacking, they must be imparted. All these aspects must be factored into the ambit of professionalism and accountability, which our teachers must display at all times.
Therefore my speech will discuss the issues of teacher recruitment and professional development initiatives.
Qhwaban' izandla. [Kwaqhwatywa.] [Kwahlekwa.] [Uwelewele.] [Please give a round of applause.] [[Applause.] [Laughter.] [Interjections.]
We want to commend the collaboration and co-operation between the Department of Basic Education and the Department of Higher Education and Training. This collaboration is twofold - funding and teacher education. In regard to funding, we commend the Department of Basic Education for the target it has set for 2012 to 2013, that it needs to have 6 800 newly- qualified teachers, aged 30 years and below, entering the Public Service as teachers.
The department also has as a target that 11 500 new bursaries are awarded to students enrolled for initial teacher education. The Funza Lushaka Bursary Scheme is proving to be bearing fruit, with over R462 million allocated, benefiting over 16 000 beneficiaries between 2007 and 2010. In 2011 alone, bursaries were awarded to 8 068 recipients. The recruitment drive for the department will further be intensified by the fact that R671 million has been allocated for the Funza Lushaka Bursary scheme for 2011-12.
Qhwaban' izandla. [Please give a round of applause.] [Laughter.] [Applause.]]
We are happy that the Department of Higher Education and Training is coming on board to fund students through a ring-fenced fund at a cost of R101 million, through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
The approved Long-Term Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa, 2011 to 2025, promises that its implementation will provide more strategic direction and key activities to ensure that an expanded and accessible formal teacher education system is established to ensure an adequate supply of quality teachers for the schooling system.
We are happy that the Department of Higher Education and Training has kept its promise. This was that a fully developed plan for the expansion of teacher education to enable teachers to be produced for all sectors - including further training and education colleges, adult education and training centres and other postschool institutions - will be developed and costed during the 2012-13 financial year.
At the moment we are also seeing the allocated funding bolstered by the announcement that three teacher training colleges will be opened in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga to train foundation phase teachers. [Applause.] This will go a long way in addressing the foundation phase teacher shortage.
However, we need to indicate that the shortage of maths, science and technology teachers may turn out to be a problem. Currently, we recruit teachers from other countries who have academic degrees, and therefore lack general teaching methods. The President's call is for us to invest in producing more teachers who can teach maths, science and African languages.
The other challenge is the placement of such teachers when they complete their studies. The Department of Basic Education has shown that the number of teachers placed in posts, as at 2009, stood at 2 907, which was 79% of teachers who graduated. We therefore propose that provinces be assisted with placements of such teachers, as we may lose them to other sectors.
We also think that the advocacy of bursaries in rural areas and the outcome assessment of the bursary scheme, to see if it is responding to the shortage of maths and science teachers, must be intensified.
The ANC-led government, in its election manifesto, considers our teachers to be assets of our education system. For the teachers who are already in the system there was a commitment to raising the status of teachers through better in-service training, which will result in more motivated and capable teaching in South Africa.
There has been criticism of the content and knowledge gap among our teachers, particularly in maths and science. In rural areas our children have to contend with unqualified and underqualified educators.
Kwiimeko ezinje ngezi, alikho ithemba lokuba iziphumo ingaba zezincumisayo. [There is no hope for positive results in situations such as these ones.]
The shortage of maths and science teachers has led to learners' choosing subjects that do not help admission to further education. Hon members, you have seen what apartheid education has done to our country. On this podium and on this platform, I say that is exactly the legacy that we will continue to be dealing with as South Africans.
We are happy that the department, in its action plan, has noted that teachers who are already in the system require continuous assistance to improve their capabilities and confidence in their profession.
The fact that the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill has given the SA Council for Educators, Sace, a responsibility to oversee the Continuing Professional Teacher Development, CPTD, signals progress in regard to centralising all the teacher development initiatives. However, we are still waiting for Sace to finalise this pilot project and the necessary processes in regard to the CPTD, so that all the implementation processes are co- ordinated.
The other call is to make school management more effective. We need school management teams that will ensure that teaching and learning take place. We need school management teams that understand their responsibilities and roles. We need school management teams that promote harmony and respect for duty in schools. The reality these days is that there are great divisions between school management teams and the staff. [Interjections.]
Finally, we encourage teachers to honour teaching and its related call to duty. We encourage those who are doing well to keep doing so, while those who are demoralised should see the bigger picture and change their mindset. Our belief is that the 2012 budget will go a long way in addressing these challenges.
We also salute the ANC-led government for their visionary and liberating approach to extricating our country from the vagaries of colonial and apartheid education.
Yidlan' ihabile ningophusi! [Kwaqhwatywa.] [Keep up the good work and do not lose hope. [Applause.]] The ANC supports the Budget Vote. [Applause.]
Hon Chairperson, I was intending to read from a prepared speech but, given the important issues that have been raised, I thought it would be best to respond to them. In doing so, I would ask the honourable House to reflect on the five strategic goals of the Action Plan to 2014.
The first certainly responds to the concern of the hon Madisha, who was formerly a member of the union that he, in fact, accuses of not fulfilling its functions. He was the president of that union. Be that as it may, the first element is that of early childhood development, because that is central to the provision of quality education.
What we can share with you is that, not only have we more than doubled the number of learners in Grade R in our schools, but we can also say quite proudly that 85% of the children who attend school today have received some form of early childhood development.
We can say to you today that 1,6 million resource packs are sent to Grade R learners. We can say to you that indeed the choices that we have made with regard to early childhood development, particularly the foundation phase that the hon Madisha refers to, have borne fruit.
In the annual national assessment, for example, learners in Grade 1 achieved more that 70%; learners in Grade 2 achieved approximately 67% to 68%; and then there was a decline. That is clearly linked to the provision of early childhood development. I am more than certain that when the annual testing takes place this year, we will find a marked improvement in the performance of learners in literacy and numeracy in Grade R. Therefore, the choices that we have made are indeed correct.
With regard to the hon Lovemore, who spoke about teacher development, we invite her to look at the Action Plan because one of the pillars of the Action Plan and strategic choices is teacher development. You cannot possibly have quality learning without quality teaching.
In April 2012, for the first time in the history of this country, all the unions agreed to a strategic teacher development plan. Such consensus had never been reached in the past. Today there is consensus among parties, including the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa, Naptosa, and the Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysersunie, SAOU, that they will undertake and augment the provision of teacher development in our schools. That is a huge step forward. To pretend that teacher development is not occurring is indeed a lie. [Applause.]
Beyond that, hon Lovemore, ... [Interjections.] Please, I did not disturb you or intervene when you were speaking. Beyond that, we have 144 teacher resource centres, which we are going to use to ensure that we are able to assist educators in regard to using workbooks.
More than 130 000 educators have been trained in Foundation Phase and Grade 10 in regard to the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement. When the hon Madisha says that he cannot understand what is happening or that he was told by some unknown person at some unknown gathering about confusion with regard to the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement, I must say to you that that can only be a blatant lie. No single expert, academic, union or political party has accused this government of providing an unimproved version of the National and Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement. [Interjections.] No, no, that's what you said.
Order, hon members!
Indeed, all experts, all academics and all political parties are celebrating, for the first time, a cohesive, unfragmented and clearly scripted curriculum. To suggest otherwise is, indeed, a lie. I want the hon Minister ... [Interjections.]
Hon Deputy Minister, will you please take your seat? What is your point of order, hon member?
Madam Chair, on a point of order: Is it parliamentary for the Deputy Minister to say that hon Madisha was lying?
Allow me to say it is a general feeling, if indeed it is not so.
Hon Deputy Minister, I will consider it. I didn't hear him. Continue, hon Deputy Minister. [Applause.]
The hon Madisha was economical with his proof. [Interjections.]
Chairperson, could I address you on a point of order, please? I think that ... [Interjections.]
You think?
No, no, no. I want to say, Chairperson, that the correct procedure is to study the Hansard and then come and rule on the matter.
What's the difference if I refer to the Hansard?
I didn't hear that, Chairperson.
Take your seat, hon member.
Hon Chairperson, when the truth hurts, they try to interrupt and intervene in ways that will distract us from what we are doing.
In fact, in regard to the action plan, the first strategic focus - and the hon Lovemore should pay particular attention to it - is the promotion of literacy and numeracy.
Today we can celebrate the fact that more than 50 million books on literacy and numeracy are distributed at schools. Books go to each and every learner. That's incredible progress from where we were yesteryear. Today every Grade 1 to Grade 9 learner has the benefit of a book that will augment his or her ability in literacy and numeracy. That is critical, and necessary for the provision of quality education.
For the first time in this country we can also celebrate the fact that more than 6 million learners have been universally tested on their ability to read, write and calculate - this has never happened anywhere in the world. Today we can say that we are able to diagnostically assess the ability of learners, class by class, school by school and district by district, and that must, indeed, be celebrated.
Therefore, what we should be saying is that you are making the right advances and correct strategic choices. In fact, let us support you in regard to doing so.
Furthermore, we should celebrate the fact that there is a steady improvement in the performance of our learners in regard to Bachelor's passes and overall percentages. We have heard the Minister saying that the supplementary examination has contributed to and augmented the success. We are now beyond 72% and I think that is an important achievement. [Applause.]
I think the central challenge we face as a country, irrespective of who governs and where we govern, is the issue of accountability. I certainly agree with my hon colleague here that accountability should exist at various levels: in schools, in their professional leadership and management; in the districts, through the district managers; in the provinces, among the heads of departments; and certainly at the national department, in regard to the director-general and the Ministry itself.
What we have done in terms of our strategic plan is to say that the centrality of accountability must inform our ability to be able to deliver quality education. How do we do that? We do that by assessing, and by ensuring that we monitor the performance of our learners; by ensuring that attendance is, in fact, monitored and evaluated; and by intervening when we see that provinces are not fulfilling their executive responsibilities. In fact, we intervene irrespective of the political party to which they belong.
With regard to the intervention, I want to share with the House that Cabinet has mandated the Deputy Minister of the Basic Education and four other Deputy Ministers to oversee, monitor and assess the performance out there.
There is already a dedicated team from Treasury, and the Departments of Basic Education, of Higher Education and Training, of Public Service and Administration, and of Justice and Constitutional Development to support and have a sustained presence in the Eastern Cape; and to ensure that issues of textbooks, nutrition, transport and financial management are being addressed. Indeed, progress is being made.
What we should say is that for the first time this government has taken the drastic step of intervening in terms of section 100(1)(b), but it recognises that in the complex arrangement of constitutionalism where you have concurrent competencies there are going to be tensions, and these need to be addressed.
I am happy that the MEC for education and Training in the Eastern Cape is here. He will indicate to you that each and every one of the recommendations of the team of Deputy Ministers was accepted and endorsed, and is being implemented.
It is intolerable that textbooks are not being delivered to the people. I am not going to say that Limpopo is right in doing so. We have intervened because they have failed to do so. We have intervened because we have not been satisfied that the books that are being procured address and respond to the needs of those learners. Today we can say that R284 million has been set aside, that the books have been procured from the publishers, and that within the next 30 days they are going to be delivered. That is the reality. If we had proceeded ... [Interjections.]
Hon members, order please! Listen to the Deputy Minister, please.
If we had proceeded on the basis of the decisions and choices they made, we would have been spending an amount in excess of R875 million on needs that did not exist. We have a particular responsibility as far as expenditure is concerned -hon members themselves have raised the issue of fruitless expenditure. Now I am saying to you that the road ahead is a difficult and arduous one, but we have taken the right steps.
I think we have the resolve and the determination. We are not merely visiting the provinces, but squatting in the Eastern Cape and squatting in Limpopo - we have a responsibility to our children. Whether our children are here in Philippi, in Grabouw, or in Lusikisiki, they are our children. It is not about the politics of education, but about a political commitment to ensuring that we provide quality education for all. [Applause.]
In conclusion, let me mention two things that have disturbed me. The first is a statement - in fact, it is depicted very well in a cartoon - of former President F W de Klerk who, having received a Nobel Peace Prize and having renounced apartheid policy, has stated that there was really value in the homeland system. He says that monolingual and ethnic communities would develop even further. He now says that, and he wants to perpetuate that belief.
The late Rev Chabaku, to whom I dedicate this speech, was an activist ... [Interjections.]
Hon Deputy Minister, your time has expired. [Interjections.]
Hold on! Hold on! That's what you said. You said, "We embrace and commit ourselves to the values of the Constitution; we believe in a nonsexist and nonracial democracy," and yet, when you appoint a Cabinet, it is pale and male!
Hon Deputy Minister, your time has expired, please.
There are no females! We cannot say something that cannot be reconciled with our actions. Thank you very much, hon Chairperson. Thank you, hon Minister for your leadership, and thank you, Minister Pandor and former Deputy President, for your presence. [Applause.]
Mnr die Voorsitter, die agb Minister het beheer oor die belangrikste departement in die land. Sonder 'n goedfunksionerende onderwysstelsel het ons land geen sinvolle toekoms nie. Sonder 'n onderwysstelsel wat genoeg bel in ons jongmense, begroot ons land vir 'n skrikwekkende toekoms. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Adv A D ALBERTS: Mr Chairperson, the hon Minister has control over the most important department in the country. Our country will not have a meaningful future without a well-functioning education system. Our country has to prepare for a daunting future in the absence of an education system that invests in our youth in an adequate manner.]
Futurists tell us another truism: The best way to predict the future is to create it. Now if South Africa intends to plan for a prosperous future, then we most certainly have a strange way of creating it, for it is also a fact that the state of our basic education system is not rising to the challenges of the future. Without limiting the scope of the problem, let me enumerate some matters that deserve urgent attention.
The first matter is that the high pass rate in schools masks the fact that the quality of education is substandard and will leave us with a legacy of inadequately schooled workers.
The second is that our facilities are inadequate, with too few schools being built to ensure mother-tongue instruction. The third is an inadequate curriculum. The curriculum is problematic, firstly because of its biased social science content, which sidelines and demonises the Afrikaner as having contributed only negatively to this country's development. This is not true. Secondly, the curriculum does not give enough attention to skilling our country's children in science and mathematics. Thirdly, the prescribed textbooks contain traces of hate speech and intolerance towards other cultures, including Afrikaners.
Agb Minister, enige onderwysstelsel wat gebou is op die demonisering van ' n minderheid, sal sosiale kohesie vernietig en ons sal moet begroot vir grootskaalse konflik in die toekoms. Die agb Minister moet in ag neem dat die regering verplig is om, ingevolge die internasionale reg en die Grondwet, kulturele regte, veral in die onderwys, te bevorder. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Hon Minister, any education system founded on demonising a minority will destroy social cohesion, and we will have to prepare for large-scale conflict in future. The hon Minister has to take into account the fact that the government has an obligation to promote cultural rights, especially in education, in accordance with international law and the Constitution.]
Afrikaans schools have dwindled to almost 300 at the last count. This is nonsensical in the light of government's own pronouncements that demographic reality will be the guiding light of social planning.
Afrikaans is the third largest language in the country after Zulu and Xhosa, with English in a distant sixth place. Should Afrikaans schools not actually increase in line with the demographic reality? Yet only Afrikaans schools are forced to accommodate non-Afrikaans-speaking learners. This inevitably leads to the anglicisation of Afrikaans schools and the destruction of a culture.
We have advice on how the Minister can address this human rights concern. The answer lies in mother-tongue instruction in all 11 official languages. That means the Minister will have to build more schools for all language segments. The Minister will then also see that due to mother-tongue instruction - not English as first language, which is some people's fourth or fifth language - the quality of education will increase. It will be a win-win situation for everyone.
Agb Minister, erken jy 'n taal, dan erken jy 'n volk. En as jy 'n volk erken, wen jy hulle goeie trou om 'n sinvolle toekoms vir almal in Suid- Afrika te skep. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Hon Minister, when you acknowledge a language, you acknowledge a nation. And when you acknowledge a nation, you win their good faith to create a meaningful future for everybody in South Africa.]
Chairperson, much will be expected from this budget and the ACDP sincerely hopes it will deliver what the budgets of previous years have failed to deliver.
The enormous amount of effort and money being invested in our basic education system must, for the sake of everyone living in South Africa, result in a significant improvement in both number and quality of school learners at all levels. Concerns have been raised that low standards are sending a wrong message to pupils, parents, universities and employers. Low standards also undermine transformation of both the basic and higher education systems.
To earn a matric certificate, pupils need to pass two out of six subjects with 30%, and four with 40%. Under apartheid a 33% average was needed. So an increase in the minimum pass for matric would deviate from many, many years of tradition. Changes would clearly create huge challenges for the department and for learners and teachers, even if implemented cautiously and progressively. Are you considering any such changes, hon Minister?
Schools that perform poorly carry a debilitating legacy from our past. The combined efforts of government and society have not been able to reverse this legacy to date. Quality education requires at the very least both quality teachers and quality textbooks, which we know are a priority of the department. What will make this year different to any other with regard to better handling of these crucial resources?
We note the strategic priority of the department to support and develop the teaching profession, but the ACDP would like to see an increased emphasis on improving teaching skills and content knowledge. The large percentage of teachers in the final grades of school who do not have enough subject matter knowledge or knowledge of teaching to prepare students adequately for final examinations is unacceptable. We would also like to see measures being taken to benchmark the quality of teachers and to promote job fulfilment.
Before a student can pass exams like matric, they first need to be taught good study techniques: the ability to read and comprehend, the ability to take meaningful notes and how to manage their time. These are areas where learners fall short, especially when entering higher education institutions.
Minds are impressionable when young and if taught that "learning the memo", in other words, marking model answers prepared by departments, will be sufficient to pass, they lose the passion and knack for real, lifelong learning. The degree to which this has been prioritised in this Budget will determine much of the success and failure to come in the years ahead.
The ACDP calls on the department to monitor whether or not the school curriculum and activities are adequately incorporating ethics and leadership training to assist learners not only to be competent in their profession, but also to be trustworthy, honest and able to work with other people.
There is a need for improved Internet connectivity and e-learning, particularly in rural areas. The ACDP welcomes the plan to establish 3 300 ICT laboratories in schools. At the end of the day, the ACDP supports this Budget Vote. [Applause.]
Hon Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister of Basic Education, hon members, all guests, and ladies and gentlemen ...
... I nhlekanhi eka hinkwenu na ku mi xeweta. Ndzi ta rhandza ku vulavula hi xiyimo xa dyondzo ya swifundzankulu eka ntirho wa matirhelo ya swikolo eka tidyondzo ta vana va hina.
Ndzi nga si endla tano swi kahle ku hlamula eka switsongo swa leswi nga vuriwa. (Translation of Xitsonga paragraphs follows.)
[... good afternoon to all of you. I would like to debate the state of provincial education in respect of the performance of schools in the teaching and learning of our children.
Before I can do that, it is good to respond to a few things that have been mentioned.]
The hon members on my left have status. They are from the opposition parties. If they cease to oppose, it is very difficult to know what they will become. At times you must be able to oppose exactly what we are doing. It is within your context. [Interjections.]
It is difficult for members to come here and create the impression that there is cadre deployment in government when they have not seen this policy in the government. They cannot give us a copy and say this is how government deploys cadres. Members of opposition parties themselves are working in government. If they consider that, they will perhaps never be employed anywhere.
Every process of teaching and learning is driven by curriculum delivery. In our engagement with the education system, we have found that districts are the catalytic link in curriculum delivery between the national department, provinces and schools. The department has noted that a district office is the management subunit of a provincial education department and, critically, its responsibility is the provision of management and support to schools where the actual delivery of the curriculum takes place. This means that to a great extent a good, functional school is as good as the functionality of the district.
How then does the 2012 Budget Vote respond to the functionality of the districts in order to adequately assist in curriculum delivery? One should be very appreciative of the fact that the department has seen fit to establish district offices across the country, and in some instances circuit offices, in a bid to reduce the distance between a school and the province.
At the beginning we were worried that there seemed to be no consistency in the establishment of such district offices. Some provinces were prioritising circuit offices on the one hand, while on the other hand other provinces were establishing district offices. Furthermore, the establishment of such districts differed from one province to the other, while in some cases different setups were seen even in a single province. This meant that districts were not established on an equal footing and therefore their operations were bound to differ.
Within these districts there are elements that we need to highlight in order to see their optimal functionality. Overall we are concerned that some districts are failing to give proper advice on matters of double- parked teachers, temporary teachers, inclusive education, the kind of support required for teachers and subject choices of the learners. We therefore advise that processes that aim to stabilise districts and schools should be expedited.
We are pleased that the department has published the guidelines for the organisation, roles and responsibilities of education districts. It is good that the guidelines will be able to standardise the establishment and organisation of districts across the country. We have noted that the guidelines are open for public comment until 18 May 2012, but we advise that the speedy finalisation of the process is a priority.
In 2011, when we were in Ntabankulu in the Eastern Cape, the teachers raised the issue that the Lusikisiki District Office is 180 km away from many of the schools it is supposed to serve. Again in the Eastern Cape, in January 2012 we found out that the Libode District Office is situated in another district, far from the schools it is supposed to serve. In Mopani District in Limpopo we noted that the district was further divided into what they called subdistricts, thereby having Giyani and Tzaneen subdistricts with their senior district managers respectively.
The above scenarios raised the following four issues, amongst others: a lack of understanding or no understanding of the concept of a district, which leads to inconsistency in district establishment; an inability to access or difficulty in accessing the district offices; a lack of support, or support not always being available; and inadequate interventions. This raises the issue of what the considerations were that were taken into account when district offices were established in these areas.
If the district office is not accessible, it will obviously not be possible for it to immediately render the required support to schools. In such instances you find that while the districts are far from schools, there are no circuit offices to complement such functions. It is therefore not surprising to see districts like Mopani improvising by further dividing the district into two to correct the ill-conceived initial placement of offices. In Limpopo there are indications that the province wants to further divide some of the districts to make them more accessible. While the move is good, we are, however, worried about whether this is going to be done in terms of the guidelines. If the guidelines are not followed, we will face a situation where there will be further conflict between districts and circuits. We have noted that the guidelines have presented challenges in districts, ranging from support, accountability, boundaries, size, norms and organogram functions to staffing.
Our main concern is the knowledge capacity and understanding of responsibilities of some district officials. This is mainly evident in the district curriculum support teams, which include subject advisors. Hon Minister, in the provinces we visited the subject advisors are viewed as compliance officials who only come to school to check if teachers have complied with continuous assessment guidelines. More worrying is that this creates conflicts between teachers, because throughout the year such advisors never set foot in schools to guide or render support to those teachers. In the Manyeleti area teachers cried foul because of subject advisors who were not even conversant with the issues that teachers need to focus on.
While this may be attributed to lack of content from the subject advisers, issues such as transport also play a role. Some advisors could not even go to visit schools because of a lack of transport. It is important to note that when we establish districts we need to ascertain that we have covered all the ground in regard to subject advisors, capacity and the resources that they will need to render effective support to schools.
While we were in Mpumalanga, we saw district management support teams that did well in assisting the management of schools in developing turnaround strategies.
In the Eastern Cape we saw district officials who were like departmental conduits. Their main duty was to send correspondence to schools. In regard to support, nothing was happening. In one instance they indicated that all their powers had been stripped away by the province and they merely waited for directives from the province.
We have noted that the district governance support teams in Limpopo seem to be doing very well.
We are raising all these issues so that the basic functionality of the districts is prioritised in respect of leadership, resources, the number and utilisation of staff, and curriculum support services to schools.
We are happy that the Minister has embarked on an initiative of having quarterly meetings with the senior district managers. This will bring uniformity in national functions and processes that should guide districts on how various national policy imperatives can be realised.
We still have to assess whether the action plan of the department informs the planning and processes of some of the districts in the country.
What we also need to commend, hon Minister, is the fact that there is a drive to implement intervention strategies based on a specific analysis of performance and contextual factors of particular districts. Our observation has been that the challenges in these districts are indeed different and they must be assisted differently. We are pleased that these interventions will cover all intervention processes, starting with the delegation of responsibilities and explaining what is to be done and when. Furthermore, we are happy that a concerted effort is also being made to focus on poorly performing districts, while further supporting the ones that are performing well.
We keenly await the presentation of the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit Bill, the Needu Bill, to the committee. To us, this Bill is long overdue. We want the unit to get legal standing which will give it space to operate away from the department. This is reinforced mainly by the fact that at one stage the Needu committee gave an outline of its preliminary findings from the schools they had observed.
It will be good to finalise the Bill so that we all understand the scope and mandate of Needu before much of its activities are taken out of context ...
Tanihi ANC hi seketela mpimanyeto lowu leswaku wu ta pfuna swifundzankulu ku tirha kahle swinene. Inkomu. [Va phokotela.] [As the ANC, we support this budget so that it can help provinces to perform very well. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]]
Thank you, hon member. Hon members, earlier on I indicated that I would give a ruling on what the Deputy Minister had said. I would like to quote what he said "... I must say to you that that can only be a blatant lie."
Hon members, that is unparliamentary and I request the Minister to withdraw it.
I respectfully withdraw it, hon Chairperson. [Applause.]
Thank you, hon Deputy Minister. Hon members, I think we should proceed with our debate.
Chairperson, on a point of order: The member didn't tell the truth because they said that the Deputy Minister said ... [Interjections.]
Hon member, take your seat. We have gone through the Hansard and that is what the Deputy Minister said.
Chairperson, hon Minister and hon Deputy Minister, hon members, invited guests and stakeholders, including leaders of teachers' trade unions who are here, Azapo agrees that education is, and should be, a societal issue. South Africans from all walks of life should have an interest in education. It is through quality education that South Africa can address the challenges that we have in our country, such as the skills shortage.
With the limited time that we have, we would like to raise the following points. Regarding the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, Azapo supported and continues to support the call that was made when the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, QLTC, was launched. We repeat what we said in this House, that the QLTC can be an answer to the many problems that are bedevilling our education.
The campaign identified key stakeholders and the minimum that each had to do to turn things around. Departmental officials committed themselves to supporting schools, ensuring that teaching resources were provided on time and monitoring teacher and learner attendance. Teachers committed themselves to be on time, to be well prepared for all their lessons and to teach for at least seven hours a day. Learners committed themselves to attending school regularly, to working hard and to respecting teachers. Parents committed themselves to supporting and protecting their children's schools and to co-operating with teachers. Communities are committing themselves to protecting schools and to ensuring that they are not vandalised.
This is a winning formula. If all of us were to focus on these bare minimums, South Africa would be a different country and the many negative stories that we read in the media would be something of the past.
The Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign, QLTC, is not in the budget. If it is there, it is subsumed under other programmes. Maybe the Minister should consider appointing a person in her office, or in the office of the director-general, whose only mandate is to drive the QLTC.
Members of this House should disabuse themselves of the notion of the value of talking only about teachers when they address matters related to education in our country. When the Minister talked about the three Ts I heard her referring only to teachers. Teachers can be in class, but that won't help if there are no learners there. Teachers also need the support of the community. So every time we talk about the QLTC, we must address all the stakeholders. [Interjections.] Many teachers in the Limpopo province are in class on time, but they are still waiting for the delivery of textbooks - even as we are conducting this debate!
A clarion call should also be directed to all that departmental officials must be left to do their work without hindrance. [Inaudible.] We are unhappy when we hear that departmental officials have been turned away from schools because "they had not made appointments to visit those schools".
Azapo is concerned about the management, or should we say, the mismanagement of funds, especially in the various provincial departments. According to the report of the Auditor-General, some provinces are persistently recording overexpenditure or unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. In the latest report, only three provinces received unqualified audit reports, with five having qualified reports and one having a disclaimer.
Azapo is also still waiting to hear of an accounting officer being charged with the mismanagement of public funds in terms of the Public Finance Management Act, or to hear of an executive authority being taken to task as a result of an Auditor-General's report. I can also mention provincial departments that underspend, in the midst of poverty. Azapo supports the Budget Vote. [Time expired.]
Agb Voorsitter, Ministers, agb lede, dames en here, ek dra graag hierdie toespraak op aan al ons leerders met gestremdhede. [Tussenwerpsels.] [Hon Chairperson, Ministers, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to dedicate this speech to all our learners with disabilities. [Interjections.]]
For this financial year, the Department of Basic Education budgeted R1,4 billion for the Curriculum Policy, Support and Monitoring programme which, amongst other things, seeks to improve the performance of learners with special needs. Of this amount, R572 million is for the Kha Ri Gude adult literacy project, but we see that a minimal budget of R750 000 is available for inclusive education in the Minister's budget. We can, therefore, conclude that learners with special or remedial educational needs are being sidelined by the ANC government at, let me stress, the national level. [Interjections.]
An addendum that I have here ... [Interjections.] ... to the Annual Performance Plan of the department is an afterthought note in which this amount of R750 000 is mentioned. This is not a good example for provincial education departments on how to budget for inclusive education.
According to Statistics SA 2009, the number of 7- to 15-year-old children with disabilities who do not attend school is estimated at 10%. It is even worse in the 16- to 18-year-old age group, where there is no participation in any form of education.
The question is: Do we care enough for learners with disabilities? [Interjections.] The answer is no, because the department is no longer fully committed to Education White Paper 6 of 2001. [Interjections.]
In 2008 the department announced an initiative to establish at least one full-service school in each of the 81 education districts. The Cradock, Graaff-Reinet and Fort Beaufort education districts do not have full- service schools. [Interjections.]
There is a shortage of resources, professionals, specialists and assistive devices, and facilities for learners with disabilities are also found to be seriously lacking throughout South Africa. [Interjections.]
Overcrowded classes reflect the shortage of appropriately trained teachers. Teachers do not receive adequate support either, in dealing with the challenges of special or remedial education. For example, they are not trained to manage diversity in relation to inclusive education.
Scholar transport is a priority in the plans of the department, but the plans are silent about integrated transport for learners with disabilities. [Interjections.]
The plan to provide training at 100 schools nationally on screening, identification, assessment and support programmes is completely unrealistic. Compare this situation with the 1 000 schools that are being targeted by the department for participation in choral eisteddfods. Now you can clearly see the imbalance.
This brings me to targets. My hon colleague Annette Lovemore was correct in saying that there has been an omission of targets when it comes to teacher development and training. [Interjections.]
In general, the poor responsiveness demonstrated by the department in their planning and budget for learners with disabilities ... [Interjections.] ... demonstrates the ANC government's state of mind.
It is no wonder that vulnerable children, especially young girls, are the targets of rapists. [Interjections.] Any number of recent, tragic examples of this vulnerability speak volumes.
The DA is concerned about the poor response by the ANC government to address the plight of learners with disabilities. [Interjections.] In her book, Time to Think, Nancy Kline proposes that when things go wrong in a government department, it is sometimes a better option to correct the wrongs, rather than to fire the Minister.
No, we don't want that.
We don't want to fire the Minister ...
Thank you. [Laughter.]
... but we are saying ... [Interjections.] ...
Order, hon members!
... we must seek ways and means to efficiently and effectively address the educational needs of learners with disabilities. [Interjections.]
Die DA sal ouers toelaat om keuses uit te oefen oor watter skole hul kinders moet bywoon. [Tussenwerpsels.] Ons sal hulle vra of hul kinders spesiale skole of hoofstroom-skole moet bywoon. [Tussenwerpsels.]
Die DA sal seker maak dat opsies vir staatsondersteunde skole beskikbaar is om voorsiening te maak vir leerders met gestremdhede en sal ook hul skoolvervoer prioritiseer. [Tussenwerpsels.]
'n AGB LID: Luister mooi!
Ons sal die stigting van remedirende klasse by hoofstroom- skole aanmoedig en befonds. Ons sal ons planne laat fokus ... [Tussenwerpsels.] ... op die grondslagfase en die intermedire fase om remediring in 'n vroe stadium te bewerkstellig. [Tussenwerpsels.] Die ANC- regering doen nie hierdie tipe goed nie. [Tussenwerpsels.] (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[The DA will allow parents to choose which schools their children should attend. [Interjections.] We will ask them whether their children should attend schools for learners with special needs or mainstream schools. [Interjections.]
The DA will ensure that public schools have options available to them that will provide for learners with disabilities, and will also prioritise their school transport. [Interjections.]
Listen carefully!
We will encourage and fund the establishment of remedial classes at mainstream schools. We will focus our plans ... [Interjections.] ... on the foundation and intermediate phases to bring about remediation at an early stage. [Interjections.] The ANC government does not engage in such actions. [Interjections.]]
The Western Cape has the highest number of special needs schools in South Africa ... [Interjections.] [Applause.] ... and they are already implementing many of the above-mentioned ideas. [Interjections.]
The Western Cape education department has put a pilot team in place to assess the existing needs and provide support to a sample of 10 ... Thank you. [Time expired.] [Interjections.] [Applause.]
Chairperson, hon Minister of Basic Education, Deputy Minister, director-general, members of the portfolio committee, Members of Parliament, and ladies and gentlemen in the gallery, I greet you all. [Interjections.]
Do I look nervous? I might look nervous because of what I'm hearing when people come here and say things that are not a true reflection of what is happening out there.
I hear hon Smiles coming here to boast and say that the Western Cape has the highest number of special schools. It is not true, hon Smiles and your party. The Eastern Cape has the highest number of special schools. You can go to the documents; it is well documented.
Hon Smiles, as members of the portfolio committee we had a serious complaint from the Western Cape schools saying that what is being offered by those schools is not what is needed by them. We had a delegation of members coming from those schools to the committee, because the department of education in the Western Cape is not taking care of those schools.
In most of those special schools, black people are suffering and they are vulnerable. Therefore the hon member cannot boast about something they cannot take care of. [Interjections.]
Let me go back to my speech, hon Chairperson - I was angry about what had been said.
In this fourth democratic government the ANC has noted that skills and education are important for every member of the society in order for him or her to realise his or her potential and to participate in social and economic life.
While this observation acknowledges that education plays a crucial role in emancipating our people socially and economically on the one hand, on the other the reality is that there are social and economic burdens that are obstacles to our people's attaining skills and education. It therefore becomes difficult for our people, particularly children from poor communities, to get the required opportunities and preparation to participate meaningfully, socially and economically. This is due to the socioeconomic burdens.
Noting this, it is imperative for our government to address these socioeconomic burdens if our children are to have access to quality education in order to be able to participate fully, and in a meaningful way, in the socioeconomic landscape of our country.
The high prevalence of socioeconomic challenges includes burdens relating to poverty, wellness, health, nutrition, barriers to learning, inclusivity, safety and lack of care and support for our learners. These issues have the strong potential to tamper with access to education and to compromise the quality of our education.
Dealing with poverty should continue to be a priority for our government, specifically the Department of Basic Education. This will go a long way in giving effect to the principle of the right to education and to the realisation of quality education.
The most worrying factor is that these challenges have a strong potential for eroding gains in learner retention and also have a strong potential to increase an already high drop-out rate. Therefore there cannot be a better vehicle than education and our schools to increase our efforts to bring about poverty alleviation and improve the health of our children.
The ANC-led government has waged war on poverty - and the gains are visible - since our attainment of democracy in 1994. The commitment by the department to take the war on poverty further in its Action Plan 2014, is a good indicator.
The department has made a huge contribution in resources and allocations to the educational enrichment services and programmes in the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF. In the 2012-13 financial year, programmes received R5,4 billion, an increase from the R5,1 billion of the 2011-12 financial year. We are proud to attest to the huge impact these programmes have on our children and the poor communities they come from.
Our findings indicate that it is not only that the learners benefit, but there are also good economic spin-offs created by these programmes for the families and communities. Our children are being fed; they are screened for basic health problems; they are receiving workbooks; they are transported to schools; and they are not paying school fees. As of now 69,3% of schools are no-fee schools. The parents and communities are meaningfully taking part in some of these projects, thus making them economically active. How wonderful it is to see basic projects contributing to the stimulation of economic growth in a small but profound way.
Great progress is being made in the expansion of school nutrition to secondary schools. The department needs to be commended for the R4,9 billion grant for the National School Nutrition Programme. This programme continually feeds over 8,8 million learners. We have noted the impact of the programme where children are kept at school and are able to take part effectively in the learning processes, while their parents and communities benefit either through supplying food and other needs, or by being food handlers.
The health and wellbeing of our learners is also impacted upon by poverty and scarcity. Some of the villages and communities are situated far from clinics and health centres. Let me cite one example. In my constituency I heard of a learner who had an interaction with a nurse for the first time during the school health screening programme of the Department of Basic Education.
Although one does not necessarily wish to generalise with regard to how widespread the challenge is, the fact that some children are far from these health facilities poses health hazards that can either affect the child's learning or lead to their dropping out.
As the ANC government, we are happy that the department has set a target of 150 000 learners to undergo health screening in different schools. This is a great improvement on the target of 100 000 initially set for the 2010-11 financial year. We applaud the department for doing that. This, indeed, is providing interventions to address health barriers to learning, barriers that have the potential to negatively affect learning.
The expansion of this basket of educational support services to learners in poor communities is making a difference and assists in keeping them at school. It offers them learning opportunities that will further equip them to break the cycle of poverty in their households.
We also note with satisfaction that out of 25 000 schools in our country, by the end of this year over 18 000 schools will have been linked to the local police stations to enhance safety in our schools. When well co- ordinated, these projects will address the increase in violence and substance abuse in schools.
Hon Minister, we can do still better if we finalise the realignment of the quintile system. More children will benefit if Quintiles 1, 2 and 3 are grouped together and Quintile 4 falls in one category.
However, aggressive and significant investment in the war against poverty in our basic education is still needed. Through the process of oversight and constituency work, one still finds numerous incidents and challenges in regard to access to and the provision of quality education. These challenges have a strong bearing on poverty. It is no secret that we still have obstacles preventing access to quality education as well as the completion of the schooling programme.
We warmly welcome the fact that from Grade R to Grade 9 all learners at least have a workbook and a book in front of them. However, we note that most of the learners in the further education and training, FET, band still do not have textbooks. Some assertions indicate that we are still below 50% coverage of learner-teacher support material in the FET band. While three or four learners are still sharing one textbook, we want to note that all of us need to play our role.
We also notice that our schools make it worse by failing to retrieve the few available textbooks from learners at the end of each year. During our oversight visit to Mpumalanga we noted that some schools thought that the provision of textbooks is a yearly process where schools would be given new sets altogether, instead of a top-up when the need arose.
Coupled with this, provinces do not know the language profiles of their learners. We were dismayed that some learners in Sekhukhune District were still waiting for the arrival of a supply of IsiZulu setwork books, which had not happened since 2010. There is a need to complement the supplying of textbooks with making an effort to help our school managers understand that a textbook is a commodity that must be jealously protected.
The spectre of teenage pregnancies still haunts our education system. The 2009 Department of Basic Education report on teenage pregnancy acknowledged that unprotected sex, teenage pregnancy and HIV/Aids are threats against keeping a girl-child in school. According to the report, they have a serious impact on women's health, as well as the socioeconomic status and general wellbeing of the population. We commend the initiative to commission that report, because it revealed that education is central to addressing the teenage pregnancy challenge, particularly at secondary- school level.
The report documented interventions that include school-based sex education; peer education programmes; adolescent-friendly clinic initiatives; mass media interventions; and programmes implemented at community level.
The department's 2012-16 Draft Integrated Strategy on HIV and Aids highlighted the eight imperatives that underpin the strategy. This strategy, coupled with the R2,7 million for the life skills education grant, constitutes a concerted effort to confront the matter head-on.
However, recently one began to feel that sexual and reproductive health programmes for our learners need to be intensified. It seems like it is becoming a reality that "our teens are swapping books for babies", as reported in one of the Sunday papers in April. The paper's assertion was that between July 2008 and July 2010, 160 754 schoolgirls fell pregnant. The article in the paper just confirmed the shock we had during our oversight visit to Mopani District, where the Giyani region of that district had noted approximately 300 learner pregnancies for 2011. At Mavalane High School the learner pregnancy figure stood at 27 learners.
The Gauteng department of social development indicated that between 2009 and 2010, Gauteng schools recorded over 4 000 learner pregnancies, with Ekurhuleni South District recording 530 learner pregnancies from 56 schools. This increases the drop-out rate.
Recently the SA Institute of Race Relations, SAIRR, indicated that in 2010 some 32 150 schoolgirls aged between seven years and 18 years were pregnant. In addition, 52 370 had babies, making the average number of babies born to schoolgirls 144 every day. My observation is that something is seriously wrong here, Minister. We need to roll up our sleeves and make sure that we tackle this problem head-on.
While there are policies on rural education and there have been visible strides in the conclusion of section 14 agreements on farm schools, the situation out there is disheartening, Minister. Towards the end of last year I visited a school called Grootkraal in Oudtshoorn here in the Western Cape - I might not have pronounced it correctly. It was disheartening to find that the farm owner could close the school when he liked - in the middle of a year! The children there were suffering. What is more disheartening is that those children who were suffering came from very poor families, whereas the farm owner's children were accommodated in a private school. So, they don't care what happens to black people's children!
Another example is from my own constituency in Melmoth. I visited one of the farm schools and found a situation in which five grades were crammed into two dilapidated rooms. Hon Minister, something must really be done about the issue of schools under section 14. Those schools continue receiving subsidies from the department, but the situation in them does not reflect what they are getting.
The most worrying factor at present is expediting the improvement of the physical infrastructure and environments of our schools, particularly those in a bad state. We derive no comfort from the fact that while some learners enjoy the benefits of a good space for learning, others in rural areas do not. Some have a good learning space but they still lack basic needs.
While noting the complexities of the problem, we believe that the R5,8 billion allocated to education infrastructure and the conditional grant of R2,3 billion for school infrastructure backlogs should make a difference. The ANC supports the Budget Vote. Thank you very much! [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Chair, let me acknowledge the Minister of Science and Technology in her absence. She was here. And how can I forget my younger brother, Mr Ramurula, who is also here with us - he is a human resources specialist. Let me also acknowledge Mrs Dina Molefe, the principal of Ramokoka Primary School in North West. I gave her special invitation to be here and want her to stand up for the House to greet her.
Mme Molefe, ke kopa o eme. [Mahofi.] [Mrs Molefe, will you please stand up? [Applause.]]
She is the principal of a school I visited in the rural North West. At that school we were replacing an old dilapidated building which was built in 1910 by the Germans with a new one.
What is special about her is that, when I was enquiring about the annual national assessment results, which I always do on my visits, I was really shocked beyond belief by what this school from a very poor rural community had achieved. Their scores are among the top 100 in more than 10 000 schools. [Applause.] These were the highest scores I had ever seen coming from the black communities. They scored 75% in maths and 69% in literacy. That is why I say she really stands out.
When I asked her how she had got that right, she said that they had done everything that I had said they should do. She said that there was nothing more that they did than to follow to the letter what they were supposed to do in schools. I really want to thank her for coming. [Applause.]
I also want to thank Business SA, which has joined us here today. We have very great partners in Business SA. Let me also thank the diplomatic corps which always assists us financially.
I also thank members for a very good debate and acknowledge the valuable inputs that they have given to us. I want to indicate to members that we take those inputs seriously and will consider them in our strategic plans and follow up on them.
I just want to make a few comments. Mr Mpontshane, fortunately we always agree. Some of the people have to come back home because of political orientation, ... yileya yokuqala. [... the very first one.]
We have agreed on the reopening of colleges.
Hon Lovemore, we have agreed on the centrality of teachers. Unfortunately, you had to present your written speech despite the fact that I had said the same thing. I'll tell you where we differ or disagree. [Interjections.] Give me a chance, because I kept quiet when you were speaking! Hon Alberts, we agree on the centrality of African languages and mother- tongue teaching. However, there is a real world in South Africa. Afrikaans had an advantage at the time the old regime was providing 15% to develop it and put all the resources into supporting it. The regime did not do that for the nine African languages, in order to put them at the level where you can use them efficiently as languages of learning. That is the reality of our situation and it does not mean we are not conscious of or sensitive to the importance of mother-tongue teaching. If we had it, I am sure we would ride on it.
Hon Lovemore, I would have expected you not to tell me about what McKinsey said, because we have all read the McKinsey report. I said that we had an integrated teacher development strategy. Comment on that!
We have different provinces implementing different strategies. You are telling us what we are doing. For instance, Gauteng is using mentoring and the Western Cape is using monitoring in the classroom. All the things you said we should do are being done by different provinces. For instance, Limpopo is using replacements, where teachers are taken out of class and are substituted for, sometimes for up to six months, in order to be grilled on content. Look at what we are doing and criticise us on that. That is the problem with your analysis.
In that McKinsey report it is indicated that the Western Cape's system is among the 20 improved systems. Maybe the reason you didn't talk about it is because the research was done under ANC leadership. We are learning from each province what works and what does not work, and this is something that we constantly do as a collective in the Council of Education Ministers,