Chairperson, hon Ministers and hon members, I come from Limpopo with the mandate to participate in this national debate and discussion on enhancing the culture of learning and teaching. I was mandated not to engage in politicking on education. I think that we have long since passed the stage where we talk about provincial issues as if we were a federal republic. We are a unitary republic, so we can't have more than one vision for our education system.
We took the approach that a healthy mind in a health body is equal to a healthy school and a healthy community. So, while it is important to look into the issues relating to the internal processes of our education system, it is also important to take into account the communities in which we find our schools.
As a result, we have noted that we do not - in our province at least, I do not know about the other provinces - as yet have adequate facilities for our schools.
We have noted one anomaly, which the MEC has probably pointed out, namely that whilst we are busy building state-of-the-art schools, there are, at the same time, kids who are still studying under conditions that are not desirable.
We find that because of the approach which we adopted, some of the schools we have built, even the ordinary schools, are collapsing. So we need to determine what needs to be done there.
I come from a rural province. We have found that there is a factor unique to our rural schools. It is that our children are not able to do their homework properly because Eskom has the tendency to provide electricity with a low voltage. This means that the poorest of the poor must actually upgrade their electrical hardware in order to make it possible for their children to do their homework.
Our roads infrastructure also needs to be taken into account because sometimes, if it rains in certain areas, kids are not able to go to school. That has an impact on their educational progress. We have also come to realise that the call for free and compulsory education is important, precisely because that will relay the question of patriotism. A child who was brought up and sent to school by his country, by the state, is likely to be grateful to the state and the people of the country, as compared to the child who was sent by a struggling mother or uncle. So the whole question of free education will actually have an important impact on the wellbeing of our country.
We also looked at the question of educators. We realised that while it is important for teachers to be au fait with their subject matter, the good teacher is one who does not only know the subject matter but also knows the community from which the students and the children come. This enables that teacher to understand the difficulties the learners encounter in the educational system.
We also noted that it is important for us to make sure that the department that deals with supplying water co-operates with the education department. For instance, at the school we built in Phalaborwa, there was no co- ordination with local government. The school cannot operate because local government says that it did not know that a school would be established there. So our intention in the future is to have better co-ordination with our local government.
On the language issue, we have come to realise that while it is important for students in the lower grades to learn in their mother tongue, we think that that is not sufficient. We must point out to our education department - I hope that this is their terrain - that there is nothing wrong with copying from the past. For instance, when the National Party came to power, it made sure that it did not reinvent chemistry, physical science, mathematics and so on. What it did was to translate all those textbooks into Afrikaans.
We do not see why these subjects cannot also be translated into our own languages. We should have a structure that deals with this so that we are able to go forward with our own languages. Our own languages should not be used as the language of learning only at the primary level.
We are also saying that we have too much policing in schools. It is not the way to go. We are not saying that it should not be there, but rather that it is necessary to heighten the social consciousness of communities instead, so that they are able to appreciate the importance of community.
We think that this can only be done if communities - not only students and teachers and so on - are organised. In this way we can make sure that our communities understand the importance of education.
We would also like to see adult education intensified in our province. These days, schoolchildren are given very difficult tasks to complete. It is difficult for children from a village because they lack not only material infrastructure but also human resources. Their parents - in many cases just the mother because the father is working either on the farms or the mines - are illiterate, as are so many of the people in the countryside. Some of the tasks that these learners are asked to perform require somebody who is actually au fait with the subject. So it is also important to understand the need for adult education in that light.
We think that it is important for us to guarantee better access to finances for our students in higher education. Not every rural village parent in my province will understand the dynamics of higher education. If the various provincial departments of education can take an interest in and take responsibility for following up on students who pass at the end of a year and make sure that they link them up with state resources that are available, they will contribute a great deal in making sure that our children access the funds that are available.
We have also seen that it will be important for us to redefine what we mean by the term "parent". When talking about the role of parents, we should say that a parent is not necessarily the blood parent of a child; it can even be somebody who is standing in loco parentis. In our communities we find that there are many retired people who are knowledgeable about education, but because they do not have children at school it is difficult for them to participate directly in schools. Yet those people who have children at school are not au fait with educational matters.
On the issue of feeding schemes, we feel that it is important to monitor what happens at our schools, especially our primary schools. At one of the schools we visited, we were told that according to the norms and standards guidelines of the education department, learners do not get meat. When we asked the feeding scheme people why this is so, they said it is specified in the menu from the department. Well, we approached the department and we were told that that was not the case.
We are happy that our province intends making sure that kids who go beyond primary school on to high school should also be provided with meals. A child does not suddenly become rich when he finishes primary school. Even learners at high schools in our communities do need food to be provided.
There is also the question of the ideological environment within which education takes place. Our TV, radio and print media promote the idea that they are very helpful in making sure that our children not only become skilled but also get moulded into useful citizens. However, when you watch TV, listen to the radio or read our newspapers, you find that the ideas are not helpful in building our young people into critical citizens of tomorrow. We hope that our education system is not there just to produce people who will go and sell their labour in the market; we hope that our education system will produce useful citizens.
We think that our education system should also produce politicians like us here, who, tomorrow, should provide the necessary environment within which our society can operate. Because if we don't have credible politicians, we will have a country that is run by those who make everything unstable.
I mention this now because in Limpopo, where I come from, it is disheartening to find that where student formations no longer function according to political ideas - maybe ideas from different political parties - the ethnic element is coming back. There are Zulu, Venda and Tsonga students' associations and so on. That, I think, is a recipe for disaster. Tomorrow we might end up having warlords all over the place, defending ethnic entities.
That is coupled to the tendering processes. We said that our schools are collapsing because, firstly, people who are awarded tenders do not do proper work. Secondly, because of the element of ethnicity, what will happen is that everybody will make sure that they do their level best to push their own narrow interests. That, in turn, may also strengthen ethnicity.
In order to address this situation, I think it is important for politicians to make sure that they make the population aware of the seriousness of education.
Insofar as internal processes are concerned, I think we agree with other provinces about what should be done at schools. Thank you.