Hon Speaker, I would very much like to respond to three statements that have been made.
With regard to the infrastructure at the Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology, this is one of the many initiatives that have been undertaken by government in relation to the establishment of appropriate infrastructure conducive to learning.
Every week since July last year, we have been able to deliver a school, replacing a mud school in the Eastern Cape. These schools are state-of-the- art schools, having the necessary IT connectivity, laboratories and libraries.
The Eastern Cape has already been the beneficiary of 48 schools, and we have another 51 schools under construction. The Western Cape, for example, has 14 schools under construction and will be receiving, from the national government, another 11 schools to alleviate the plight of our learners in schools.
With regard to partnerships, such as we have with Telkom, we can celebrate the fact that they are indeed working. The Siyavula Trust Technology- powered Learning provides mathematics and science textbooks to all Grades 10, 11 and 12 learners each year free of charge across all quintiles.
We also have a collaboration agreement with Sasol, which basically provides Grades 4, 5 and 6 science books to learners throughout the country.
These initiatives, in my respectful opinion, have contributed meaningfully to the improvement in results in both mathematics and science, and to the increased participation in these two gateway subjects.
With regard to the statement made by the President in relation to the summit, that education is indeed an apex priority and should be elevated to being a societal issue, it has been taken seriously.
There are various partnerships that have been established. For the first time in the history of this country, we have an education collaboration framework, which has created trust in terms of which education and the private sector are working together in order to enhance the quality of education in our schools.
We do believe that we are on the right trajectory. The past five years have indeed indicated the quantitative and qualitative improvement in our results, both in high schools and primary schools. I thank you. [Applause.]