Hon Speaker, I would like to thank the hon Lovemore for prefacing her statement with the realities of our past, in which there were enormous disparities in what the black child would receive in comparison to the white child. These are the realities that we grapple with in our democratic South Africa.
Indeed our mantra in the past administration and in this current administration is that there should be quality education. Whilst we can celebrate the reality that we have achieved universal education in primary school and much of our high school, the issue of quality education has had to be confronted.
What is it that the government has indeed done? We recognise that education is a continuum that should start, as the NDP says, from preschool. Today we can celebrate the fact that more than 680 000 of our children, black and white, are in preschool, within schools.
Secondly, we can celebrate the fact that every child, white and black, receives resources at preschool in our public schools.
Thirdly, we can celebrate the fact that we recognise the enormous challenges that we face as a country in regard to literacy and numeracy, and that to this end we have distributed more than 150 million workbooks from Grade 1 to Grade 9 to promote literacy and numeracy. It is important that we set in place an appropriate foundation for learning so that we can directly improve on the quality of education.
We as a government and as the ruling party can celebrate the fact that more than 10 000 educators are the beneficiaries of our Funza Lushaka scheme, which focuses on Foundation Phase learning which, in turn, focuses on mathematics, science and languages.
We can celebrate the fact that for the first time in the history of this country there is an integrated professional development programme which has been supported by all teacher unions. Therefore, we recognise the importance of content knowledge and pedagogy and that this is a process that is unfolding. Indeed, what we are doing no other country in the world has done.
We have recognised the importance of literacy and numeracy, and to that end we tested more than 5,5 million of our children from Grade 1 to Grade 6 on literacy and numeracy three years ago. We can tell you about the performance and the achievements of every child and what he or she is experiencing in every class, grade, school and district in the country. Last year we tested more than 7,2 million, and this year we have done so again. The indications are that from year to year there is an improvement, and I am cautiously optimistic that in terms of quality we will see a similar improvement this year. Thank you so much, hon Speaker. [Time expired.] [Applause.]