Hon House Chair, I have responses to three statements that were made.
The hon Mokoto raised the issue of teacher discipline and the violation of the ethical code. The Department of Basic Education has consistently reminded and urged the SA Council for Educators, which is responsible for the maintenance of discipline among educators, to have rigorous procedures in place and the capacity to deal very vigorously with those who contravene discipline, as well the ethical code of conduct. Over the years they have become much swifter in how they deal with these issues, but challenges persist.
The SA Council for Educators has a particular responsibility for ensuring that those who are struck off the roll of educators should not be able to teach in any public or private school in the country. To that end, they have put in place the appropriate monitoring mechanism.
With regard to the rural allowance, raised by the hon Mpontshane, the two affected provinces where rural allowances are paid are not the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal; they are KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.
What we have urged the heads of department to do, in terms of a structure called the Heads of Education Departments Committee, Hedcom, chaired by the Director-General of the Department of Basic Education, is to ensure that they review the issue of incentives and rewards.
Currently, in terms of the proclamation, incentives or rewards can be provided for teachers who teach scarce skills subjects such as mathematics, science and languages; teachers who teach in hard-to-teach areas such as townships, with overcrowded classes; and teachers who teach in rural areas.
There has been an unevenness in the application of the rewards, and it's important - and I agree with the hon member - that we pay particular attention to the retention of skills in deep rural areas. To that end we've urged Hedcom to review the matter in order to ensure that we have a uniform process, in terms whereof we can appropriately compensate or reward educators who teach in hard-to-teach and hard-to-reach deep rural areas.
With regard to hon Gina's comment on nutrition, we currently feed more that 9,2 million children every day. In Limpopo alone we feed approximately 1,5 million children every day. The affected area where this contaminated food was found was in the district of Sekhukhune, where approximately 19 learners were hospitalised ... [Time expired.]
Order! Can we please stick to the two minutes allowed for responses?