National School Nutrition Programme & Learner Transport Policy: DBE briefing; AGSA Assessment of DBE APP

Basic Education

16 May 2023
Chairperson: Ms B Mbinqo-Gigaba (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

National School Nutrition Programme

Learner Transport Policy

The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education convened in Parliament to receive a briefing by the Office of the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) on the Assessment of the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) Annual Performance Plan. The DBE also briefed the Committee on the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) and the Learner Transport Policy.

The AGSA said the purpose of the pro-active reviews of the Annual Performance Plans of departments was to understand the preparation and revision processes of the updated five-year plans and final draft APPs, to assess the completeness of relevant indicators relating to the core functions prioritised for the scoped-in subject matter, to determine whether the prior year’s material misstatements were considered in the new draft plan, and to assess the measurability, relevance, and quality of the indicators and targets planned. The AGSA also checks if the APPs meet the SMART planning requirements, checking whether the plans of departments are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

The AGSA recommended some of the key areas the Committee may consider when reviewing the APP included: Are the indicators and targets set by the department aligned with the expectations of the committee and strategies of the government?, With the limited fiscus, will the target set achieve the maximum impact in relation to the mandate?, Are there systems in place to enable achievement?, and Will the targets achieve the best results for the citizens?

The DBE indicated that the NSNP was a flagship poverty alleviation programme of the government. School meals provided a critical safety net for vulnerable children and households. The DBE was committed to improving the quality of the meals we provide, as well as extending the reach of the programme. The Committee was further briefed on the NSNP implementation inefficiencies and pressures on the meal costs, quality control and modernisation of the NSNP.

The Committee was informed that learner transport implementation was a joint responsibility between the Department of Transport and the Department of Basic Education. The policy provides that the national government will oversee the implementation of the policy in consultation with relevant stakeholders, including provinces, municipalities and school governing bodies (SGBs). The policy further provides for a National Interdepartmental Committee (NIDC) to be established and oversee the implementation of the policy, particularly the Learner Transport Programme. It further provides for the National Departments of Basic Education and Transport to monitor the provisioning of learner transport programme in provinces.

The Committee also received a breakdown of the institutional framework for the various provinces and details pertaining to the learners transported in the mainstream as well as special needs schools for all provinces.

The Committee was concerned about what happened in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and raised questions about the right model to be used for the NSNP in the provinces. Members raised questions about consequence management actions taken against those responsible for the chaos in the delivery of food to schools in KZN. Regarding the scholar transport programme, members wanted to know who the DBE felt should be in charge of handling scholar transport between itself and the Department of Transport. The members also raised concerns about the reach of the scholar transport initiative to destitute learners and learners with disabilities.

Meeting report

Opening remarks
The Chairperson welcomed all the members and the delegation from the Department of Basic Education (DBE) as well as the Office of the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) to the meeting, noting that it was the Committee’s first physical meeting post-COVID-19.

She then asked Mr P Moroatshehla (ANC) to open the meeting with a prayer.

Apologies were noted.

The Chairperson read through the meeting agenda and then asked for a mover for its adoption.

Mr T Letsie (ANC) moved for the adoption of the meeting agenda and was seconded by Mr Moroatshehla.

AGSA’s briefing on DBE 2023/24 APP
Mr X Khohlakala, AGSA, said the purpose of the proactive reviews of the Annual Performance Plans of departments was to understand the preparation and revision processes of the updated five-year plans and final draft (APPs), to assess the completeness of relevant indicators relating to the core functions prioritised for the scoped-in subject matter, to determine whether the prior year’s material misstatements were considered in the new draft plan, and to assess the measurability, relevance, and quality of the indicators and targets planned. The AGSA also checks if the APPs meet the SMART planning requirements, checking whether the plans of departments are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

The characteristics of good performance indicators include that they are reliable and accurate enough for their intended use and that they respond to changes, they are verifiable and make it possible to validate the processes and systems, they are appropriate and avoid unintended consequences and encourage service delivery improvements, they are well defined, clear, and unambiguous so that data can be collected consistently and can be easily understandable and usable, they are cost-effective and justify the cost of collecting the data, and are relevant and relate logically and directly to an aspect of the institution’s mandates.

Some of the key programmes and indicators in the Department of Basic Education (DBE) include Curriculum Policy, support, and Monitoring (Programme 2); Teachers, Education Human Resources, and Institutional Development (Programme 3); and Planning, Information, and Assessment (Programme 4). The AGSA recommended that the Committee should monitor the inclusion of the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) indicators in the APP of the Department and that it should implement accelerated interventions for the realisation of MTSF aspirations. The Committee must also monitor the progress made on the implementation of the APP and assess the impact the non-achievement thereof has on service delivery.

(See Presentation)

DBE briefing on NSNP

Dr Granville Whittle, Deputy Director-General: Educational Enrichment Services, DBE, presented the NSNP programme to the Committee. He said NSNP is a key poverty alleviation programme of the government to address hunger, malnutrition, and micronutrient deficiencies in learners. It is a key pillar of the Care and Support for Teaching and Learning Framework that seeks to address barriers to teaching and learning. The key objective of the NSNP is to enhance learning capacity and give access to education. In 2002 the programme transferred from the Department of Health to the Department of (Basic) Education (only primary schools) and between 2009 – 2011, Secondary Schools were included in the programme following a recommendation by the Financial and Fiscal Commission. Since its inception, NSNP Menu has evolved from serving a cold meal (bread and vitamin C enriched drink) to a warm cooked meal (variety in protein, starch, vegetable/fruit).

On the NSNP Conditional Grant Framework, he said the feeding requirements include providing the following:

Green, yellow & red fresh vegetables/fruits are served daily.
A variety of protein-rich foods are served in line with approved menu options.
Soya mince meeting approved specifications served only once a week.
Canned pilchards/mackerel/sardines are served at least once a week.
Seasoning should be provided for all meals.
UHT full cream milk or pasteurized maas are served once a week.

The provinces are responsible for the implementation of the programme, the development and implementation of the business plans, providing human resource capacity at all levels, quarterly reports, as well as transfer schedules and reconciling expenditure by schools. DBE has a key responsibility for oversight of compliance with National Treasury Regulations including the NSNP Conditional Grant Framework as funds are disbursed to Provincial Education Departments to procure goods and services to implement the NSNP.

The programme provides nutritious meals to 9.6 million learners on school days - A nutritious meal is made up of: quality of food items used, proper preparation and cooking methods and quantities served. It is funded through a Conditional Grant and the FY2023/24 budget is R9.8 billion. An additional budget over the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) of R1.5 billion to mitigate increased food inflation, spikes in petrol prices, high learner numbers and improved menu options is envisaged to also extend the provision of breakfast.

(See Presentation)

DBE briefing on the Provision of Learner Transport

Mr Solly Mafoko, Chief Director: School Infrastructure Planning and Delivery, DBE, said the National Learner Transport Policy was approved by Cabinet in 2015. The overarching objective of the policy is to improve access to quality education by providing safe, decent, effective, integrated, and sustainable learner transport. Learner transport implementation is a joint responsibility between the Department of Transport and the DBE. The policy provides that the national government will oversee the implementation of the policy in consultation with relevant stakeholders, including provinces, municipalities and school governing bodies (SGBs).

The policy further provides for a National Interdepartmental Committee (NIDC) to be established and oversee the implementation of the policy, particularly the Learner Transport Programme. It further provides for the National Departments of Basic Education and Transport to monitor the provisioning of learner transport programmes in provinces. The policy also provides for the prioritisation of learners with special needs and the integration into the mainstream learner transport programme. The programme for learners with special needs is mostly managed by Inclusive Education Units (IEU) in the Provincial Departments of Education.

The NIDC has noted significant underreporting on the number of learners with special needs that need learner transport in Limpopo, Northern Cape and North West. The Department of Basic Education and Transport are intensifying efforts to address the data gaps that have been identified through Provincial Oversight Visits. A full extent of the needs of the learners with disabilities is required to allow integration into the mainstream learner transport programme.

As part of the major challenges to implementing to learner transport, he mentioned the location of the learner transport function, noting the urgent need for a decision on the location of the function. The function is currently being managed by the provincial Departments of Transport and Education as assigned by the Premier and Provincial Executive Council. In recent years, the function has been migrating from the Department of Education to the Department of Transport and back. It has become difficult to ensure accountability and effective executive oversight on the performance of learner transport.

Insufficient funding is also one of the challenges and as a result, National Treasury has been consulted with the view to establish a conditional grant for learner transport where a road map for the establishment of the grant was outlined. Key to the establishment of the grant is the resolution of the responsible department at the national level to manage the envisaged grant. A significant funding injection from the provincial treasuries to the learner transport programme is required to scale up the programme.

(See Presentation)

Discussion

Mr Moroatshehla asked the AGSA if it would be possible to link the indicators with what is reported if performance indicators would be linked with financial allocations of budgets. How had the DBE responded to the inclusion of the MTSF in the APPs? Were the AGSA and the Department of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (DPME) in a position to enforce compliance with the SMART principles and the theory of change?

On the scholar transport programme, he wanted to know the factors contributing to learners from the Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Western Cape provinces benefitting more from the programme. Was there a reason for the allocation of scholar transport to not be prioritised for learners with vulnerabilities or disabilities? The Committee went on oversight to the Harry Gwala region earlier this year and discovered learners from a special school that had not been going to school for more than three weeks because there was no assistance provided for them.

Regarding the NSNP, he referenced the Pavlov stimulus-response theory which theorises that a conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that can eventually trigger a conditioned response. The same theory equally applies to the NSNP programme and what happened in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) because they got the learners used to eating food at a specific time and then suddenly, they could not provide the food. This was self-destructive behaviour from the KZN Provincial Department of Education (KZN PED) because they are destroying the future of the children. Between the centralised and decentralised models, which model empowers local economies and what are the risk level for both approaches? If the KZN PED had decentralised funding, would the recent challenges have been as severe as they had unfolded? How many instances of food poisoning were reported in schools across the country and what contributed to the food contamination that resulted in the poisoning?

Ms S Mokgotho (EFF) asked whether the AGSA gave the DBE Accounting Officer a timeline for when the Department should have reviewed its APP to incorporate the recommendations made to them. Had the Department revisited its APP to include some of the MTSF indicators according to the SMART principles? How is the DBE dealing with service providers who overload vehicles with learners? How viable and sustainable are scholar transport operations in schools? How is the DBE going to ensure that the vehicles used for scholar transport are roadworthy? The unroadworthy vehicles cause road accidents and, in some cases, learners arrive late at school. Who is responsible for monitoring the vehicle maintenance plans and technical support for emergencies? How is the DBE ensuring that learners are dropped off and collected at schools timeously?

The Committee saw what happened in KZN because of the PED centralising the funding model. Why did the Department monopolise the money that is supposed to procure food for schools? Did the Department consider empowering small businesses to become service providers and to create job opportunities? Why was the R2 billion given to a single service provider? Was a strategy devised to recover the lost teaching time for the learners who missed school because of food not being provided? Is the Department still using the decentralised funding model?

How does the Department ensure that the money allocated for the NSNP is sufficient to cater to all eligible learners? How are the suppliers’ pricing models standardised and who is responsible for quality assurance activities for suppliers to ensure that the food that is supplied is free from contamination? What happens to the suppliers who are found wanting and are unable to perform their duties? How are the Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems of the Department systematised to ensure that all bidders stand an equal chance of being selected?

Ms A van Zyl (DA) said she did a quick calculation on the learner transport figures which talks to mainstream transport and special needs transport and the deficit of mainstream transport that is not catered for is 19%, but what is more concerning is that 33% of learners that qualify for transport that is paid for by the government do not receive this. What are the targets of each province for providing transport to learners that are in need and how far are the provinces in meeting the targets? Are there professional nurses or assistants on the busses or scholar transport provided by the government for children with disabilities?

The Department clarified that if parents decide to take their child to a school that is further from their location, they must bear the costs of the transport related to that, but the chances are that the schools that are close to them are not managed properly or the education is not up to par. How is it that the Department is advocating for the best education for children if it denies their parents the right to choose the better schools for their children? What measures does the Department have in place to ensure that learners with special needs in need of scholar transport are receiving the necessary support?

She noted the Department mentioned there is conflict about who is responsible for scholar transport between the DBE and the Department of Transport. In her view, this function belongs to the DBE because it knows better. She also asked what the DBE felt about this issue and whom the Department felt the function should fall upon. Lastly, the Department stated that the National Learner Transport Policy will be presented to the Exco by June/July 2023. Will the policy be ready by that time and is the Department ready to present it?

Mr Letsie was happy with the change in the AGSA’s mandate in their involvement in the formulation of Departments’ APPs instead of coming after the APPs are finished like they did in the past. The NSNP and the learner transport policy are good initiatives to increase learner attendance in schools. This should be remembered instead of trying to constantly find faults. There are several provinces where the scholar transport initiative is led by the Department of Transport and in some provinces it is led by the DBE. What are the challenges in that regard? The DoT does not report to the DBE and where there are challenges, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the DBE to hold the scholar transport service providers because they were not appointed by the DBE.

He visited a school in Khutsong in January this year where the students were complaining about the quality and safety of their buses. They conducted an unannounced visit to the school the following week and saw the conditions of the buses, one of them had a hole in its floor where people could see the road while inside. Some of the buses are overloaded while they are not in a position or condition to contain even the required number of learners. What mechanisms does the Department use to assess the quality of the buses that are contracted by the DBE? Does the DBE have a system to monitor the pick-up and drop-off times of the buses? Are there any consequence management actions taken against bus drivers who fail to meet the required pick-up and drop-off times?

The Department uses a blanket approach to determine who qualifies for scholar transport, but has it considered a different approach in profiling the learners and families who go to the schools to determine whether they can or cannot afford to pay for the transport? Has the Department considered having a hybrid approach for scholar transport, to have certain learners pay for the service while some receive it for free based on their ability to afford it? The extra funds received from payments could help increase the numbers that can be transported by schools.

The number of schools benefitting from the NSNP between Gauteng and the Western Cape is almost the same, but the number of learners reached by the programme in Gauteng is almost 1.2 million and in the Western Cape, it is just shy of 510 000, which is almost half of the numbers from Gauteng. This means that the schools in Gauteng are more populated than those in the Western Cape. He was unsure whether to support the view of having a single service provider to save on costs or to have several service providers for the NSNP in the provinces. He said they did not get the answers regarding what happened with the service provider in KZN, and highlighted the importance of appointing a service provider that has a good track record of delivering services.

The R9.8 billion allocated to the NSNP programme is almost as big as the budget of the Department of Science and Innovation, which is very big, so those who are responsible for the programme are responsible for the livelihoods of people. Has the Department heard any reports of attempts at hijacking the trucks delivering the food to schools in certain communities across the country? Which integrated location system and stock management systems are used by the Department and how efficient are these systems? Are the systems able to notify when there are food shortages in schools?

In the decentralised schools, to what extent is there variance in the menus and how is that measured by the Department, especially in the schools that buy food on their own? Many small holdings and small manufacturers complain that they are not given space by the government, and it is understandable considering the situation in KZN where one provider was given the responsibility of providing food to schools. There are countries where small holdings are used well and, in some communities, small-scale farmers are the providers of certain fruits or vegetables to schools.

In a centralised development, it might be difficult to give such people opportunities because of the competition from big businesses. How can the Department promote accessibility to such opportunities for cooperatives to play a role and is that a model that can work in South Africa? Is there a possibility that the DBE could work with the Department of Agriculture to identify some cooperatives that can help with the NSNP programme to accelerate its transformation? Does the DBE have timelines for the modernisation of the NSNP and all matters highlighted in slide 26?

Mr B Nodada (DA) asked if the AGSA had seen some of its recommendations being implemented by the DBE in the latest draft of the APP. He was happy that the AGSA was present for the presentation of the NSNP so that when the DBE’s APP and targets are considered at the end of the year, they will be able to provide their opinions. On the NSNP, he said the DBE has a responsibility to play an oversight role in the provinces because it provides funding to them.

What is the status of the investigation into the KZN chaos? There is also an indication that there might be a high-level official within the DBE that may have benefitted a family member in the tender process. Linked with that, despite the ongoing Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation, has the DBE done its own internal investigation about what happened in KZN during the awarding of that tender to Pacina and the fact that Pacina put out to the media that it did not benefit anything nor receive any money for any services that they rendered or provided? How true is that statement? The Department needs to get to the bottom of the matter so that preventative measures can be put in place to avoid such things happening again in future.

He said the MEC, Premier of KZN, and the Minister said they did their oversight and schools are receiving their food, but when he visited a sample of three schools in the province, the schools indicated that the portions of food they received after the chaos had transpired was less than half of what they provided to children. The schools still do not receive the correct portions of food to provide to the children. How accurate is the information that the 540 schools that were affected by the tender chaos are now receiving food? Is the DBE doing a periodic assessment of the situation to ascertain whether they are getting enough food for the children?

On the centralisation and decentralisation debate, he said there are no provinces that have centralised and decentralised models because if there are 26 service providers in Gauteng, that means the responsibility to provide food to schools is decentralised to the 26 service providers. If there are six service providers in a district in the Western Cape (1 provider for each of the six districts), then distribution depends on those people. It is better to have a decentralised model to be able to make an impact on what the programme is all about.

He asked that the DBE does a full audit of all the NSNP programmes in the different provinces of the country and the mechanisms that are used to establish how the differentiated approaches of the decentralised models work for each province. The NSNP has a R9.8 billion budget, and people in business look at that with hawk eyes so the Department must be cautious of that and look for ways to prevent people from trying to tap into the coffers of the state that are meant for destitute children to benefit themselves.

He received an email from a local farmer about a school in the Eastern Cape where children were crying and not studying because there was no food and they were hungry, and there was nothing that could be done because the teachers had no money to buy the food. Did the DBE do an internal investigation, similar to KZN, in the Eastern Cape to find out what happened in that situation and whether there were consequences for the responsible parties?

On slide 16 of the NSNP presentation, he argued that the majority of provinces that provide breakfast in schools are much more urbanised than those that do not provide it. The Eastern Cape only provides breakfast to primary schools and combined schools, but Gauteng, Free State, and the Western Cape provide breakfast to all their children. The rural provinces that have the most numbers of children who come from destitute and unemployed families are not providing breakfast in their schools when they should be the ones who are providing it. Why is it taking long for those provinces to provide breakfast meals in the schools?

He recently visited Zwelitsha Senior Secondary School in uMzimvubu and the school does not adhere to the rules of serving food to the children and there is no differentiation of what food they are served every day in school. Does the DBE have any mechanism to monitor that? With the rising costs of food, does the DBE have a mitigating strategy to ensure that food prices do not deter food provision in schools? Does the DBE have a plan in place to ensure that the children that are absorbed into the DBE system from the Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme benefit from the NSNP and is that budgeted for?

Lastly, he said the Navalsig High School in the Free State, which is a quintile 4 or quintile 5 school, has trouble with overcrowding because it absorbs children from poor backgrounds, and they do not qualify for the NSNP because they are a quintile 4 or 5 school. How does the Department determine schools that qualify for the programme? Do the schools have to inform the Department about the indigent children that they have? The same question applies to the scholar transport programme.

The Chairperson asked if the Department has directors that deal with the NSNP in the provinces and what role they play when children are reported as not having food. The programme is not a provincial programme and should be discussed as the national programme that it is. If the Department took control of the NSNP, it would decide on the meals that are eaten in every school in the country. Why must the provinces decide on the programme when it is a national programme? The chaos that happened in KZN should be the responsibility of the national Department, but it is understandable why it is not because the province leads the programme. She appealed that the NSNP must be the responsibility of the national Department and it should dictate how it is rolled out in the provinces and how the service providers must be appointed.

The same applies to the scholar transport because the Department needs to decide if it is a DBE responsibility or if it is a DoT responsibility. She said if the scholar transport needs to be a DoT responsibility, then the DBE must happily allow it to take the programme, but it must figure out its intergovernmental relationship with the DoT. These issues do not need to be politicised because if there are serious issues that have nothing to do with the interests of children, then they must be dealt with decisively.

The Department needs to be honest about things to itself, and even the way it handles its facilities that handle the storage of food, as the food is handled differently in the different provinces. The budget of the NSNP is R9.5 billion, and R1.5 billion is used to mitigate food inflation and add to the provision of breakfast. How is the Department dealing with food inflation? Regarding the awarding of contracts, either centralised or decentralised, which model is effective? What does the Department, as the custodian of the programme, think is the best way forward for the programme? How are undocumented learners accommodated in the budget of the NSNP programme? Has the Department considered partnering with the Department of Social Development (DSD) for this programme because the DSD also provides food parcels and has a knowledge of destitute households?

Regarding the scholar transport and the known challenges of the programme, what mitigations are put in place for accountability purposes in terms of underspending and overspending? In many provinces, there are serious budget challenges and there were suggestions of building schools near communities. What could be the solution to these challenges from the DBE’s perspective? What public participation mechanisms are in place to ensure that the public and affected learners make inputs in the policy review?

Is there a way that the Department interviews the children who are beneficiaries of the NSNP in terms of how they feel about the meals they get?

The Chairperson had an engagement in her province where children were complaining that they were not getting meat in their meals, such as chicken livers, and there were complaints that there is no protein in the food that the children are given in schools.

AGSA’s reponse

A representative from the AGSA said in terms of their review prior to the tabling of the APP, the Department had incorporated the recommendations they had raised on the SMART principles. In terms of the indicators, most of the responses that were given by the Department were not included in the APP but they are being monitored in the MTSF through the monitoring and reporting system and are reviewed by the DPME. There are instances like on priority 4 where the Department is playing a supporting function to the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities which means their targets are completely reached in those cases as they are supporting another Department. Some indicators are meant to be achieved after a certain period, but the AGSA had not followed up on their implementation this far in the year.

Because this was a proactive review of the APP of the Department, the spending has not occurred yet, so the AGSA considered the programmes and the budget allocated to them, but the budget cannot be allocated to the indicators because the government provides a budget for programmes. The AGSA cannot enforce compliance on Departments, but its duty is to point out where Departments are not complying with the law and to influence the key stakeholders to drive the initiative to advocate for better delivery of the Departments’ objectives.

DBE’s response

A representative from DBE said when the Department collects statistics from provinces, they collect unit records information, so it is not about the number but all consolidated information which includes Identity Numbers. When those statistics are submitted to National Treasury for equitable share allocation budgeting, it does not matter whether a learner is documented or undocumented because Treasury allocates funds to support all the learners. Therefore, it is incorrect to say Treasury does not fund undocumented learners.

Mr Mafoko said it is common cause that the Western Cape and Gauteng are provinces that receive a high influx of learners at the beginning of each calendar year. There are also localised hot spots when it comes to the influx of learners. In Limpopo, the highest influx of learners is usually in Polokwane, and in the Eastern Cape, the highest influx is usually in East London and Gqeberha. These influxes are also accompanied by a depopulation of rural areas and townships and this contributes to the exponential increase in the influx of learners in the two provinces. In terms of the synchronisation of the provision of infrastructure with learner transport, it is impossible to build a school within a short period so the available solution to the influx of learners is to transport them to the schools that can accommodate them.

The Learner Transport Policy says that priority must be given to primary school learners who walk long distances to school and learners with disabilities while considering the nature of the disabilities. Overloading of transport to a large extent occurs in non-subsidies transport, which is where parents club together and informally hire a person to transport their children to their respective schools. A lot of accidents that happen in the learner transport programme are in that unregulated and unsubsidised learner transport. The Department is discussing this issue in its interprovincial meetings with the DoT because the issue of enforcement of rules is the responsibility of the DoT and Law Enforcement.

It is also the schools’ responsibility to enforce that transportation is not overloaded even for the DBE subsidised transport, and there must be a teacher who receives the children as they are dropped off and picked up at school by the transport. The DBE also has teacher monitors that are responsible for monitoring the buses when they arrive at schools with the children and ensuring that the buses are roadworthy.  If they are not or if there are other issues, they are reported to the provincial department which is the custodian of the contracts with the bus owners so that the relevant clauses can be invoked. The monitors also track whether the buses arrive on time and whether all the duties as stipulated in the contract are achieved. The district offices also do spot checks in terms of the different routes to ensure that the reports they receive from the principals that are collated by the teacher monitor reflect what is on the ground.

In terms of the number of learners that are not transported, the DBE is not under any illusion and is not hiding that 67% of learners with disabilities are provided with transportation and 33% are not transported. However, in the case of learners with disabilities, there is some level of underreporting that the Department is experiencing and is working on addressing because some learners that are being transported through the mainstream programme fall into the cracks. The highest number of learners that are eligible and are not being transported are in the Eastern Cape and KZN and the biggest reason for that is the allocation of the budget, as the transportation is funded from the equitable share.

Regarding transport being provided with assistants or nurses, he said the Department provides bus assistants for learners with disabilities and it raised the issue in the Eastern Cape when it went for an oversight visit that some of the schools did not have bus assistants. However, not all disabilities require the presence of an assistant on the bus, it depends on the severity of the disability, and in that instance, the province must intervene to ensure that there is a bus assistant.

Mr Mafoko admitted that it was tricky to answer the question regarding the school of choice and circumstances and noted that transport is meant to ensure that learners access educational facilities, but there are instances where parents choose certain schools for their children because of the quality of education they provide, and that is common. It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that the deficiencies in the local schools are addressed to ensure that the quality of education is at par with the education received elsewhere rather than looking at transport as a solution because that is not a sustainable solution. It is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed.

When the DBE finalised the policy on learner transport in 2015, it requested its legal advisors to give an opinion on where the function of scholar transport should be located. The legal opinion said the function should be located in the DoT, however, experience is the best teacher as currently in five provinces the function is located in the DBE, and in four provinces it is located in the DoT. In his opinion, the function should be entirely located in the DBE. The DBE knows the learners and who the beneficiaries are and deal with them daily and when there are issues with scholar transport, the DBE must respond to them regardless of whether the function is led by the DoT in a province. The DoT deals with technical issues such as roadworthiness, etc. In terms of learners going to higher quintile schools needing transport, the Department could assist on a case-by-case basis, but it does not provide transport for learners to go to a school of choice.

In terms of the Policy, the Department is managing it with the DoT and they are equally in charge of functions as they relate to their respective departments, but the policy is ready to go for public comment in June/July this year. The intention is that after the public participation process, there is a team that will combine all the inputs that will have been received and then the DBE will interact with the organisations and stakeholders that will have made inputs to clarify if there is a need. The policy is pro-poor in its stance so introducing a hybrid model in the scholar transport programme would be like asking learners to pay fees at no-fee schools, which would be completely outside of what the policy stands for.

On the underspending and overspending of provinces, he said the main issue is with location and the Department is pushing hard and getting support from the DPME. It presented the matter to the Cabinet Committee where it is receiving attention. However, the formation or establishment of a conditional grant would assist in terms of addressing issues relating to the funding of the function and the conditional grant would be addressed by the issue of location, meaning that the function would be relocated in instances where it is in the DoT to the DBE or vice versa depending on decisions that are taken by Cabinet. This would enable the DBE to portion proper responsibilities to the different role-players.

There is a review underway between the DBE and DoT looking at addressing issues of uniformity in contracting and the remuneration models. Looking at the history of scholar transport, there have been significant improvements, but once some of the outstanding issues are addressed, it will give the Department a good leap in addressing the shortcomings and challenges that are persistent.   

Dr Whittle said the logic of the approach in KZN makes sense in that if there are 2 000 service providers and they are all asked to go and buy food on their own, they would all come with different prices for the same type of food, which is what the provincial Department was trying to regulate. In terms of which model makes sense, it is much easier for government to continue with both the decentralised and centralised models even though they have major challenges and are inefficient in their different ways.

He agreed with the Chairperson’s view that the programme should be dealt with at a national level, and he had gone to the Council of the Ministers of Education to say the model must be changed on numerous occasions, but they are reluctant to change the models. The Ministers and MECs do not want to change the model because if anything goes wrong, the President looks at them.

He said the Department buys gas as there is a national transversal contract for it to buy gas, but the provinces do not want to participate in the contract and prefer to buy directly at huge costs. The Department currently does not have a tracking system for the delivery of food in schools because, in most instances, the buying and delivery of food are run by the schools, wherein the principals of the schools decide where to buy the food, which makes it even more difficult to monitor the quality of the food they buy.

He was unsure about the track record of the company that caused the chaos in KZN, but they had no understanding of how to run the programme. The SIU is investigating them, and the AGSA also wants to investigate them. About two weeks ago, the DBE had a meeting with the Presidency, which indicated that they also want to do their own investigation on the matter. National Treasury also stated that they want to investigate the matter last week, so the DBE will integrate all those investigations. The provincial Department needed to ensure that the service provider had a track record and experience and knew what they were doing. It was also not wise to appoint the service provider in March while expecting it to deliver in April.

There is currently a debate between Pacina and the provincial Department because the company wrote an email saying they were opting out of the contract with the Department, and the national Department said the KZN Department must write back to them and accept their request to opt-out and then proceed to terminate their contract, and the KZN Department did that. The following day, Pacina wrote back to say there is no opt-out clause in the contract, so they were no longer cancelling the contract. The Department is currently receiving legal opinion on how to deal with the issue, and Pacina said they are extending the contracts of the other 1 700 service providers that were procured to deliver. There is currently an ongoing discussion between the AGSA, National Treasury, KZN Provincial Treasury, and the Presidency on the matter and hopefully, they find a solution. DBE’s view is that all this needs to be done urgently because they cannot afford to not provide food in schools.

The Eastern Cape has instabilities in its administration as it suspended its Head of Department last year and had an Acting person in the position, who was also removed and now there is another Acting person. The province also has capacity problems as it is going through a restructuring initiative as it moved some of its experienced people to different divisions and recently there was a retirement of a person who was good at their job, as well as the death of an official. The national Department continues to engage with the Eastern Cape Department and the Director General will write to them to ensure that they fill the vacancies in the Department. He asked that the Committee send them information about the schools that are not adhering to policy and regulations and the schools where the NSNP is not restored so that it can follow up and ensure that everything is in order.

National Treasury uses a poverty scale to determine how the Department allocates funds and how the funds are allocated within the provinces. The provinces decide the number of schools they feed, for example, the Western Cape feeds about 39 or 40% and the KZN feeds about 83% currently which is why there is so much pressure on the province, alongside its inefficient model, which is why they do not have additional savings to extend the programme. R9.8 billion puts a lot of pressure on the Department to do work, but in this programme, the main priority should not be on what model works better, but on the number of plates that are given to children.

In Mpumalanga, under the 5th Administration, markets were instituted for fresh fruit and vegetables and they were supported by the DBE because the logic was simply to have service providers buy from young up-and-coming black farmers at a reduced price. However, the problem was that the small-scale farmers underestimated the size of the programme and they could not supply sufficient volume, which led them to buy from Johannesburg markets and plugging the cost into the DBE, which ended up being expensive for the DBE to support the small scale farmers. In essence, for the NSNP to work, the delivery of the last mile should happen within the districts in a district warehouse so that local economic empowerment can happen.

Ms Mokgotho said the Department must stop passing the buck to the provinces because it said it was going to do timeous and continuous monitoring of what happened at KZN. If it had done monitoring and assessments at the right time, it could have been discovered that the service provider did not have what it takes to provide food to the KZN schools. The Department must do its oversight on time.

The Chairperson said there is still a long way to go but the Department must not be afraid to lead and must make decisions where it matters the most. The NSNP is the child of the government and must be taken care of, and politicians must be human at some point because as much as they are in government, they cannot agree with nonsense. The Department must take responsibility where it needs to and get its house in order.

She thanked the Department and the AGSA for the discussion and allowed them to exit the meeting as the Committee continued with its internal matters.

Consideration and adoption of draft minutes and draft reports

The Committee considered its Draft Minutes dated the 2nd of May 2023.

Mr Letsie moved for the adoption of the minutes and was seconded by Mr Moroatshehla.

The draft minutes were adopted with no amendments.
BELA Bill public hearings

The Chairperson thanked gave an overview of the Committee Programme going forward and mentioned that there would be a weekend break before resuming with the BELA Bill public hearings in the Western Cape, followed by the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape. The public hearings in Gauteng and KZN were successful with no hiccups, except for the change of venue in KZN but the Committee was well prepared for it. She thanked the members for coming to the meeting physically and noted that the Committee would have physical meetings at least once per quarter to comply with the House Chairperson’s office.

Mr Moroatshehla suggested that the next time the Committee has its physical meeting should be after the public hearings are concluded.

The Chairperson also alluded to possible additional meetings to be applied for and held either on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings - to consider provincial reports on public hearings held in provinces. In respect of the International Study Tour to the USA, the Chairperson indicated that the application was not approved and the Committee was requested to look at an alternative country – The Committee Secretary was tasked with submitting the second option (Finland) for consideration and approval.

The meeting was adjourned.

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