Chair, I intend not taking up the whole 10 minutes because I think we are in agreement on quite a number of things that have been said.
I would like to thank the provinces again for sharing with us their plans and information on how they are responding to the call to make education a priority programme. We are very happy and excited that provincial plans and directions are indeed in line with what we want to see happening.
We will be consulting with MECs and hope to announce that the Deputy Minister and I will be visiting provinces between May and June. We wish to visit schools in May and provinces in June. The idea, again as part of our oversight responsibility, is to really work out with our provincial counterparts and engage further with provinces on the implementation of the national priorities, and to discuss with them the implementation of flagship programmes.
I think a colleague from the Eastern Cape raised the issue of infrastructure which, especially in our rural provinces, still remains a very sad sight and a reminder of what we have inherited from our past. We are working on an accelerated infrastructure programme and have been engaging much deeper with provinces before we even begin to implement. We have proposals coming in around procurement of learner and teacher support material, LTSM, which is meant to help us achieve the goal of having a textbook for every child. Again, we want to engage each province to see how we can work together to ensure that we can accelerate these matters.
The idea of those visits is really not to inspect provinces. It is to check where, as the national department, we can support and co-operate with them. So we will be paying those visits. We will again visit the provinces in June and, because it will be school holidays then, we will visit district offices and provincial offices to check on how those structures are aligned to the priorities. This is to make sure that their structures speak to the strategy.
Again, to colleagues from different provinces, I think we will notify you of areas of focus. The whole idea is to see how we can support each other and make sure that, indeed, no matter what it takes, we turn the system around. We are relying on provinces to make sure that we turn the system around. As South Africans we want to pride ourselves and be able to say, "We did it", as we always do.
I think you realise that, at least as South Africans, we have agreed that we will play politics elsewhere, Bab'uPlaatjie, not in education. So let's play the games elsewhere, not here where we are addressing the problem of the education of the poor. That's what we are saying. You are asking us what we are doing. We are saying what we are doing because that's what we said we are doing. We are saying there are problems with infrastructure. You say, what are you doing about infrastructure? You are asking about things that we say we are doing, so I can't reply because you ask us what we are doing about the things we tell you we are beginning to address.
For now, we are saying this: For the next five years, let's have a moratorium on politics around education and focus on turning the system around. It is in our interests; it is in the interests of our children; it is in the interests of the nation. It is an apex programme of this government and I think it should be an apex programme around which we should at least try to find solutions. We can go and look for votes with other portfolios, but not with education. So, let's agree. Hon Plaatjie, come to the party, baba, don't overplay the Cope politics. Come home and play the correct politics.
There was also the issue raised by the hon De Villiers around the cutting of the exams budget. The budget was meant for both Higher Education and Basic Education. So, with the split, the money also had to be split. There is no reduction as such; we had to split the money with Higher Education. That's what happened. There has not been much of a cut.
There were also issues about IT. We are quite agreed, Bab'uPlaatjie. I think we are not really making the progress we should be making. We are working very hard with the Department of Communications around connectivity. Health, Basic Education and Higher Education have been prioritised regarding connectivity. I think we are all in agreement that we have to make sure that we are connected. We can give you statistics of how we are progressing. They are not that exciting, but I think we are doing something around it and we are conscious of the need to make sure that our kids are computer literate.
Chair, I want to thank you very much for the debate. I don't want to take up more time. I think it was a useful debate. We took notes of the points that members raised. We found it fruitful and productive and will act on some of the recommendations, except, hon Plaatjie, ezinye zizokwenzeka [some things will happen on their own]. [Laughter.]