Speaker, Minister Nzimande, Deputy Ministers present, the leadership of the different political parties, hon members, comrades, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you warmly for the opportunity to report to the National Assembly on challenges facing the Eastern Cape department of education, and steps that we have taken, as the Department of Basic Education, DBE, to address these challenges.
Following a number of reports, visits and engagements with the province, it became very apparent that there were serious challenges in the province compromising and threatening the right of many children in the Eastern Cape to accessing quality education, a right guaranteed in the Constitution of this country.
Again, as the national Department of Basic Education, we realise that all the efforts aimed at bringing about a sustainable turnaround in the department had to effectively address the critical underlying challenges, and we have to work with other key stakeholders to provide an enabling environment conducive to the efficient and effective delivery of education services in the province.
In view of the seriousness of the situation, and at a critical time when we have committed to and are working hard to provide and improve the quality of basic education, it was resolved at the Cabinet meeting of 2 March 2011 that the Minister of Basic Education should assume responsibility for the areas in which the provincial department was struggling to meet the minimum standards of delivery.
We had hoped that the province was going to resolve its challenges on its own, but it has been clear that that was not to be. So, Cabinet resolved that this would be done in terms of section 100 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
The most recent challenges in the Eastern Cape department of education are just a few of the many problems that the province is experiencing. The most urgent has been the overexpenditure of the budget for the compensation of employees, because the province did not comply with the policies and norms and standards relating to the educator post provisioning. This problem has placed an enormous strain on the overall budget for education in the province, and has impacted on the province's overall budget and spending trends.
The province again failed to provide textbooks and stationery to section-20 schools owing to poor management of the procurement process. It also again suspended the scholar transport programme owing to overspending; terminated the school nutrition programme before the end of the financial year owing to factors like noncompliance with policy, poor management of the budget and poor supply-chain management; and again failed to effectively implement the infrastructure programme, resulting in earmarked funds for infrastructure being returned to Treasury.
Since the Cabinet decision of 2 March 2011, the Deputy Minister of Basic Education and I have consulted extensively with the President, the leadership of the province, in particular the premier and the MEC for education. All our discussions with the provincial leadership have been conducted in a spirit of co-operation and support. As the Department of Basic Education, we have appointed a technical team comprising senior officials under the leadership of the director-general to develop a problem analysis and draft an intervention plan, working collaboratively with senior counterparts in the Eastern Cape department of education.
The first draft of this plan was duly completed, but, owing to limited time, I will not be able to speak to all the facts that were picked up. I will just cite a few underlying causes that were picked up in the province that resulted in this crisis that they find themselves in.
These are due to a strategic leadership vacuum in the province; the organisational structure; the organisational culture; poor financial management systems; problems with supply-chain management; and lack of monitoring and evaluation. These are some of the factors that we picked up from our visit to the province that are in the report.
Section 100 of the Constitution requires that when the national executive acts in terms of this section, it must submit the notice of intervention to the National Council of Provinces within 14 days of its first sitting after the intervention began. Accordingly, as required by the Constitution, a notice regarding this intervention was lodged with the NCOP on 15 March 2011 within the stipulated timeframes.
The intervention that we are going to undertake in the Eastern Cape includes taking over the above-mentioned functions and working collaboratively with the Eastern Cape department of education to address the current challenges.
In line with the commitment that the President made during the state of the nation address, we have met with the National Treasury and the national Department of the Public Service and Administration. Amongst other things, we have agreed on the following: that the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Public Service and Administration, and the Ministry of Basic Education will actively co-operate in the implementation of the intervention in the Eastern Cape department of education.
The National Treasury will primarily focus its support on stabilising expenditure, and on ensuring that credible systems and processes for budgeting, planning and financial management are instituted in the province. A detailed budget and expenditure review will be conducted to develop a credible financial management and recovery strategy.
A key thrust of this strategy will be to reallocate savings realised through efficiency and budget reprioritisation. However, given the impact of years of inefficient spending in the department, it is likely that recovery cannot be sustained within the current budget projections if we are to avoid an adverse impact on schooling in the province.
The National Treasury will facilitate the involvement and co-operation of the provincial treasury in the intervention. Our immediate focus of the intervention will be on arresting the current financial leakages owing to poor controls and corruption. The National Treasury will focus its efforts on this endeavour.
The Department of the Public Service and Administration, the DPSA, will focus on those areas that lead to the stabilisation of the schooling system. Key in this regard is the priority of dealing effectively with teacher provisioning to ensure that there is a teacher in every class. This will require a purposeful and urgent intervention to deal with the current problems related to the employment of temporary teachers and the failure to place teachers that are accessible to the establishment.
The Department of the Public Service and Administration will assist in ensuring that appropriate steps are taken to stabilise the human resource management environment, and to facilitate the need for flexible appointment of the staff required to implement the intervention. This may require some deviation in the application of Public Service regulations. The DPSA will assist in facilitating a labour-relations environment that is conducive to ensuring that the school year and teaching are protected. I will provide regular reports on the progress with regard to these interventions.
The Cabinet decision of 2 March 2011 to invoke section 100 of the Constitution was taken consciously in order to resolve challenges in the Eastern Cape department of education, and will provide for continued delivery of quality learning and teaching in the province.
The ruling party has the responsibility to ensure that our clear goal of improved quality of basic education is met across the country. It is expressly for this reason that we have taken proactive steps to better strengthen the provision of educational services in the Eastern Cape.
As learners have already lost valuable time during this term, we will undertake extraordinary measures to ensure that we compensate for lost time through extra teaching and other measures. We will work with relevant Ministries in the provincial and national departments to develop a sustainable turnaround strategy that addresses the underlying factors that led to the situation we find ourselves in. This turnaround strategy will include, as I have said, stabilising the province, dealing with the underlying causes, and putting in place new systems to ensure that we don't have a repeat of the same problem.
When I reported this morning to Cabinet about most of the underlying causes, which I have not mentioned here, Minister Dlamini asked me if there was anything that worked in the province. My answer was that indeed there are many good people in that province at provincial, district and school level.
There are committed educators and managers who are themselves inconvenienced by the problems in the province. The province has many good policies. There are actually national leaders and pioneers in many other policies that are used by other departments, which policies, unfortunately, they are not necessarily implementing.
These are people that we are counting on and who give us confidence that we will turn around education in the province. With them we will make sure that the children in the Eastern Cape will have their right to quality education protected and that these people actually deal with the current challenges to make sure that tomorrow is better than today, and that the day after tomorrow is even better than yesterday, opening up better times for children in the Eastern Cape.
To realise that, we commit ourselves as the Department of Basic Education and as the ruling party to ensuring that, indeed, the challenges experienced by people in the Eastern Cape are addressed and permanently reversed. I thank you, Speaker. [Applause.]
Mr Speaker, 31 May 2011 is a very important day in the lives of many parents and learners in the Eastern Cape. On that day, building contractors and service providers will start the work of building schools to replace the infamous mud schools that have been in the news recently.
Although she will pay for this, Minister Angie Motshekga is not responsible for this development, neither is the government of the Eastern Cape, nor the O R Tambo Municipality. It is the concerned, angry and activist parents of children attending the mud schools that have, to their great credit, brought this about.
These parents formed crisis committees for Nomandla, Thembeni, Sibanda, Sompa and three other primary schools in the deep rural Eastern Cape, and brought a case to be heard in the Bisho High Court against the government of the Eastern Cape, the national government and the O R Tambo District Municipality.
It is ironic, as it is shameful, that a municipality that bears the name of Oliver Tambo is a defendant in a case brought by the very poor parents asking for decent education for their children. It is a disgrace that poor parents, thankfully assisted by the Pretoria University Centre for Child Law, had to take the corrupt and bankrupt Eastern Cape government to court to do what it is supposed to do. It is an utter embarrassment that the Department of Basic Education is a defendant in an indefensible court case.
To her very great credit, Minister Angie Motshekga acted honourably by apologising for the situation and providing the funds to fix the problem. This is a powerful illustration of how the law can serve poor and ordinary people by providing justice against the might of an indifferent bureaucracy.
The Eastern Cape department of education is so corrupt that an out-of-court settlement rightly says that the Department of Basic Education will be responsible for appointing the service providers by 31 March for contract implementation to have the work commence on 31 May 2011 and to take reasonable measures to ensure that the seven new schools are built by 1 May 2012.
The ECDE is not off the hook. It has to provide mobile classrooms, water tanks and sufficient chairs and desks for the learners of the seven mud schools by 31 March. I assure this House that my colleagues will be there on 31 March to ensure that the temporary measures are implemented.
I invite Minister Motshekga to join me when I visit the Eastern Cape on 31 May to see whether the construction of the new schools started on time. As for rebuilding the ECDE, I wish Minister Motshekga well. One of her greatest challenges will be to ensure that trade unions play a proper role in education.
One of the constitutional challenges for the Minister is to ensure that her department rebuilds the provincial education department and does not take it over. What is important is for her department to camp out there for a period of time and to leave intact a more powerful and more credible provincial education department. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Mr Speaker, hon members, the Eastern Cape accounts for one fifth of the population. Since 1994, no less than nine MECs of education have been appointed. When such a province fails in the sphere of basic education, it does impact on the nation as a whole.
The national department has indeed recognised the gravity of the problem and decided to intervene and send in a task team. This was a necessary step, more so because the provincial department could not provide a plausible turnaround strategy. In 2010 it was the Department of Health that had to receive administrative support. Now it is the turn of the Department of Basic Education to intervene. It does make one wonder what is going on in that province, my motherland.
With all the problems that the Minister has tabled before us, it is clear that the department has been unable to manage education in the province, and many classes are without suitably qualified educators. The fact that learner enrolment has been declining by 2% in the province and that over 125 000 learners were transferring out of the province clearly reveals the public's disenchantment with the management of the provincial department of education. Today, the House needs to be given some clear answers, some of which the Minister has given, but not to the extent of satisfying the House. Minister, is it a capacity issue in the Eastern Cape? Is it a management issue? Is it a skills issue? Is it a teacher issue? Is it a transport issue? Is it a food issue, or is it all of the above? What specific steps will you take to address these specific problems?
Minister, this is no time for slogans. Yesterday I spoke about the "Three Ts": teachers, textbooks and time. Surely, with all that is happening in the province, it will be very difficult to implement the teachers, textbooks and time call?
Cope welcomes the intervention, Minister. However, it will be a wasted exercise if a detailed report on the failures is not commissioned. Such a report will be helpful as it will help other provinces to avoid what is happening in the Eastern Cape.
I need to underscore this, and the Minister has already alluded to it: our children's education is fundamental to our nation; nobody can compromise that. The national government acted too late, and let us hope that it will not be accused of having done too little as well.
The eyes of the nation are now focused on this national intervention and we trust that the situation is permanently turned around. Good luck, Minister. Thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, hon Ministers, hon members, from our side as the IFP, we welcome the intervention and we also think that the Minister has been very frank in analysing the challenges facing the education system in the Eastern Cape - challenges of capacity, challenges of poor management. All of these have led to implementation failures.
However, we think, hon Minister, there is a shortcoming in your statement, because it does not identify the likely causes of this incapacity and poor management. We would have appreciated it if the Minister had, whilst stating what the challenges were, hinted at the same time, what the causes could have been.
From our side, we just want to suggest, hon Minister, that we have a hard look at the policies that we apply there, particularly the redeployment policies - because teachers go through interviews on the basis of their professional qualifications; so then the question is: Why is there so much incapacity in the Eastern Cape if people are interviewed and employed on the basis of what they are capable of, other than being employed on the basis of the party they belong to? I think we have to look very closely at this.
We are pleased that the Minister has hinted at the possibility of tinkering with the labour laws to create a favourable environment for teaching. We welcome that, and we hope that will be implemented very soon. We thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, Minister, I have seen first-hand how the constitutional rights to education for many children of the Eastern Cape have been constantly violated by a provincial education department that simply cannot fulfil its mandate.
The problems in this department are deeply entrenched, and I therefore wish the national department the best of luck in confronting a culture of complete unaccountability across all its different levels. The children of the Eastern Cape, many of whom are the most marginalised in our society, deserve far better than the treatment they have been given by the ANC administration in this province.
Minister, I therefore plead with you to be merciless in dealing with all those elements and people who have contributed to such a fundamental breakdown in the education system. As the ID, we will therefore be monitoring this intervention and ensuring that it finally leads to tangible improvements in the system. I thank you. [Applause.]
Mr Speaker, the UDM is pleased to hear that the Minister of Basic Education has finally heeded the call from the UDM and other opposition parties to use section 100 of the Constitution, which gives her the power to intervene in provincial administrations in instances in which a province fails to fulfil its mandate.
We welcome the Minister's decision to intervene in the crisis-ridden Eastern Cape education department. For far too long, learners and educators in the Eastern Cape have been disadvantaged by the chaotic state of the provincial education department, which negatively affects their ability to enjoy their fundamental constitutional right to education.
While we welcome the Minister's intervention to help capacitate the Eastern Cape education department, we urge the national department to come up with measures that will help learners recover the lost ground. We hope that whoever forms part of the task team that will work with the provincial leadership will demonstrate the highest level of leadership by putting the interests of the learners first. The UDM supports the Minister's intervention. Re a leboga, Minister. [Thank you, Minister.] [Applause.]
Speaker, dit is goed dat die Minister van Basiese Onderwys ingegryp het in die Oos-Kaapse onderwyskrisis en sekere intervensies genisieer het. Tog laat die krisis 'n bitter smaak in die mond van die leerlinge, spesifiek ... (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Adv A D ALBERTS: Speaker, it is a good thing that the Minister of Basic Education intervened in the education crisis in the Eastern Cape and initiated certain remedies. The crisis does, however, leave a bad taste in the mouth of specifically the learners ...]
Hon members on my right, please take your seats and let us listen to the speaker.
HON MEMBERS: Hear! Hear!
Hon members on my left, order, please! [Laughter.] Continue, hon member.
Thank you.
Tog laat die krisis 'n bitter smaak in die mond van die leerlinge, spesifiek, en die belastingbetaler, in die algemeen. [The crisis does, however, leave a bad taste in the mouths of the learners specifically, as well as that of the taxpayers in general.]
We must ask ourselves how we got into this position. How is it possible that unscrupulous individuals have siphoned off funding to themselves in the name of ghost schools for so long? What type of character steals children's school funding, and how it is that no controls were in place for the corruption, over- and underspending, and general incompetence?
Should we be scared, Minister? If the Eastern Cape is a microcosmos of the greater South Africa, we have every reason to be worried. The signs are there. Thank you.
Speaker, the ACDP welcomes Cabinet's decision to invoke section 100 of the Constitution in order to intervene in the management and operation of the Eastern Cape department of education.
The department came under fire after revelations were made of gross mismanagement. Overspending of some R625 million threw Eastern Cape schools into a crisis earlier this year. In a bid to cover up for the department's overspending, it is reported that the contracts of nearly 4 500 temporary teachers were terminated, even though their services were needed. Some 1,6 million learners were denied proper school nutrition after the programme collapsed, and more than 100 000 learners, many of whom live in remote areas, were prevented from accessing state-subsidised transport.
Furthermore, support materials for teachers and learners were not adequately delivered, leaving learners without textbooks. The successful sustainable resolution of these issues will require careful and systematic restructuring of the management of the Eastern Cape department of education. That is why the ACDP welcomes the Minister's call for sustained intervention through the use of an intergovernmental co-operational agreement and the setting up of joint task teams. I thank you.
Speaker, Cabinet has taken a brave stand, and we hope the Minister will be strong enough to see the action through. There have been almost similar interventions in the past: a team led by a Dr Madiba was sent to the Eastern Cape, and another team was led by a Ms Collette Clarke. Another intervention involved taking Prof Nengwekhulu from the Limpopo department of education.
We do not know what the outcomes of those interventions were, except that as soon as those teams left, people went back to their old ways. However, we also know that some of the problems were caused by previous political heads who entered into an agreement with a union in terms of which they would "co-govern" the department.
As a result, you now have MECs and heads of departments who are tied hand and foot on the one side, and departmental officials who see themselves as untouchable and therefore act with impunity on the other.
For the sake of the children in the Eastern Cape, move in, Minister, and stop the rot. As we said earlier, we hope you have the stamina to stay the course, and that you will not be intimidated by calls to have you removed as Minister. Azapo supports the decision to intervene. Thank you.
Hon Speaker, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers present, and hon members, I greet you. It gives me great pleasure to participate in such an important debate today on the Department of Basic Education's intervention into the troubled Eastern Cape department of education. The Minister of Basic Education so ably outlined the problems that the Department of Basic Education is experiencing within the Eastern Cape and the interventions that will be made.
It is within the above context that I would like to premise my input, and on the visit of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education and the select committee to the province on 26 January 2011. I would also like to give our views that are already in the ATC Report - Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports - that I would like to speak to because a conscious decision was taken to go to these areas.
Education remains an apex priority for the ANC-led government. It remains a pillar that our government wants to use to reach its long-term development goals.
When it comes to the terms of reference of our oversight visit to the Eastern Cape, it was in the spirit of co-operation, because it was both the National Assembly portfolio committee and the National Council of Provinces select committee that visited the province. We assessed the state of readiness of schools in the region and the impact of the extreme weather.
There was also a need to give the provincial department of education support in identifying their challenges and assisting in finding effective solutions. We needed to monitor and support progress in the implementation of pronouncements made in the 2010 state of the nation address for both learners and teachers to be at school, in class, on time, learning and teaching for seven hours per day. There was a need to assess school readiness in terms of learner support material and the workbooks for Quintiles 1 and 2.
The oversight visit coincided with the oversight programme of the provincial legislature which has been conducting oversight visits to selected schools since the commencement of the school year. We in the committees agreed to join our provincial counterparts. At the same time, a national departmental team and the Minister of the national Department of Basic Education were in the province. In our engagements with the chairperson and committee members of the education portfolio committee of the Eastern Cape, they spoke, inter alia, about the changes in the appointment of the new head of department and the MEC for education. Another aspect was the financial and budgetary constraints which saw the department exhaust its R24 million budget allocation and go into overdraft. Also, the school nutrition programme and scholar transport were suspended. Furthermore, there was the suspension of 3 000 temporary teachers within their employ. The stakeholders spoke about infrastructure.
Our recommendations overlapped mostly with the intentions of the department. We recommended a need for the department to have an immediate intervention plan, based on the intergovernmental relations spirit in order to address administrative and financial challenges facing the province. We further recommended that the suspension of temporary teachers and the school nutrition and scholar transport programmes be lifted.
We, as the ANC, regret that the matter regarding temporary teachers was dragged to court, and this may affect the intervention plan by the department, although the suspensions were lifted.
Before I commend the department on the stand it took as the ANC, I would like to make it very clear to the DA ...
Tell us!
... that I really do not appreciate it when the report I am referring to now is taken out of context by the DA and placed on the Web by one of the hon members. I must state that the DA's approach ... [Interjections.] It's taken out of context.
Order! Order, hon members!
Mr Speaker, I must state that the DA's approach to this matter was very racist in nature. [Interjections.] In the northern areas of Port Elizabeth, two councillors of the DA said that black children must go back to their township schools. [Interjections.] The headline in the paper in which it was reported was "Die DA los rassebom" [The DA drops race bomb]. This just shows that the DA is still a racist party in nature. [Interjections.]
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I do not believe that any member of this House can refer to another party as racist because, by doing so, the speaker at the podium is referring to all of us, collectively and individually, as racist and that, sir, is unparliamentary.
Speaker, can I address you on the same point? To the best of my recollection, criticisms levelled against a political party are quite in order. If the criticism was levelled against an individual member of the DA, that would definitely have been out of order. [Applause.]
Hon member, I will study the Hansard and come back with a ruling. Continue, hon member.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I hope, as the hon James said about the schools that will be built in the Eastern Cape ... There was a case in the Western Cape when it came to housing: the person died, and the people are still without houses. [Interjections.] We therefore appreciate the intervention by the national department. The intervention is in the spirit of enhancing service delivery to our people. [Interjections.] The ANC has constantly been a proponent of clean governance, and effective, efficient and economical financial management in our departments. [Interjections.] We therefore applaud the Minister of Basic Education ...
Order! Order!
... for being proactive and for flying high the ANC flag by intervening constitutionally, according to section 100, to address the challenges in education service delivery in the province. [Interjections.]
Order! Order!
In conclusion, the ANC is a caring movement and government. It responds with urgency to the challenges facing our people, which have been implanted by the legacy of apartheid. [Interjections.] We wish the department well in the steps it has taken in helping the Eastern Cape.
And I must say, when it comes to the intervention, this is the notice that went to the National Council of Provinces that I received from our Minister of Basic Education. I will deal with it when we get to our next committee meeting. I am sure that we will be discussing the report on the intervention at our committee meeting. Thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.