House Chairperson, Minister of Basic Education, Deputy Minister, Hon Mhaule, Hon Ministers and deputy Ministers present, MECs for Education present, The Director-General and The senior officials of the department, Members of the Portfolio committee on Basic Education. Chairperson, I must say one is honoured today for being afforded the opportunity to address our
Nation on this important budget vote of the department of Basic Education
This is a serious platform of responsibility that should give hope to over 12 million learners, 400 thousand teachers and many other young children in the various education spaces of our country. I stand before you aware of the momentous times that we are traversing.
Our approach to education derives its inspiration from the Freedom Charter.
The Charter says; the aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace.
Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children. These are some of the values our education system is structured to impart to our nation.
The ANC manifesto calls for everyone to be part of "growing South Africa together". Education is not spread! Education is expected to respond to the demands of growing South Africa. In that score, The ANC manifesto impresses that government must open the doors of learning to all, "by focusing on quality and innovation, we will equip young South Africans for the world of tomorrow"
Chairperson, this call by The ANC is very clear. It yearns for proper preparation of our citizenry. A citizenry that will not be rendered redundant in its own country. A citizenry that is not left behind in the changing world but is equipped to participate in the mainstream economy and the emancipation of its life.
This is where we are as we debate the Vote 14 allocation of R24.5 billion to education of this country. A budget that should be central in the quest for skilling our nation properly. However, the above expectation of skilling our nation puts our education system at a crossroad. The choice to do things the same old way does not exist anymore.
However, ours would be a three-pronged approach which definitely will be unique and would need us to be smart, efficient and effective with our hard earned allocated resources. There is no time for wastages and neither time for delays and mistakes. When receiving the presentation on The APP and when analysing the Sona, and going Through The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education Legacy Report, one notes That this budget must be spread in three approaches of delivery.
The budget must consolidate the gains and it must continue to address the persistent challenges and it must set a foundation of charting a new strategic direction of the department in order to respond to the demands of the skills revolution. Chairperson, this is the system that, while we agree That it is on the upward trajectory since the down of our democracy, if however on the one hand, is a system that still has to address some realities and persistent challenges.
The same budget, on the other hand has to chart a new direction of skilling our nation. This means that the new direction will
have to be embedded within the nucleus of growth of the system and within the existing host of realities and challenges.
The trajectory of our education system has been well documented and has been open for all to see. its successes were clear to everyone and The challenges were not hidden either: indeed, this budget could not have come at a better time. A better time where two days from now, this budget vote coincides with the July month, the month in which July 18Th was dedicated by the United Nations back in2009, to be the Nelson Mandela Day, a day in which the souls of all humanity are challenged to make the world a better place.
A better time where we have an education system with the most stable curriculum.
This budget could not have come at a better time; where access in the pre- schooling and primary schooling has improved dramatically.
These are the good times, where primary school completion has increased to over 95%.
Good times indeed, because all children are entering the schooling system within their age.
We have a system that cares for the well-being of its learners by feeding 9.7 million learners out of the l2 million in the system.
We need to celebrate that 9 out of 10 schools are no-fee schools.
The 2O17 School Monitoring Survey concludes that at a national level, learners' access to libraries increased significantly from 45% in 2011 to 62% in 2017.
The number of vacant posts has decreased signi?cantly since 2011.
Chairperson, the national average for filled teaching posts (primary and secondary schools combined) increased from 69% to 78% since the 2011 survey.
The survey further notes that approximately 95% of learners across all quintiles had access to their own workbooks in both the Home Language and mathematics. The ANC government workbook Hon Chairperson that is the delivery that we can attest to! This is the work we need to continue doing within this budget so that the gains of our democracy can be consolidated. We need to celebrate these gains.
The progressive move of Early Childhood Development (ECD) is welcomed. This will indeed expand access and thereby improve quality of ECD programme. Ours is to request thorough planning and intense engagements amongst the affected departments and stakeholders so that we cover all the necessary tracks and scope of work to avoid derailment and contestations.
Our children must be able to read with meaning. We believe the department when they inform the portfolio committee that, using
the early grade assessment Toolkit, they will work to improve the reading proficiency levels in the foundation phase in all underperforming rural and township schools. The allocation of the Rl.9 billion for the Curriculum Policy, support and monitoring programme allocated in this programme may go a long way in monitoring The implementation of The reading norms and Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA).
However, Chairperson, during the presentation of the department, we noted that the targets set for monitoring the implementation of The reading norms was only 20 schools, increasing to 40 in the Medium Term targets and we feel that these may need to be revised. While we are happy that the reading call has been included in the education sector priorities, lest us also bear in mind that it has been the Presidential call and that of other international studies, thereby elevating it for greater attention.
We also need to get engaged to address the teachers' absenteeism challenge which is at 1O% on average per day. What is worrying is that the School Monitoring Survey as released recently,
indicates that the problem increased from 8% to 1O%. My reading is that it seems that the situation may not be at an alarming rate yet, but this is a matter that needs urgent attention. Intense monitoring is required and targeted support may have to be solicited.
When we read the Legacy Report of the previous committee, we noted that there were instances where teachers have been studying at home for 6 years while learners remaining with no teachers. It was recorded that some of the provinces were battling with these cases to the detriment of the quality of teaching and learning when dealing with this matter.
We need to accept that it is a matter that is also teaching us other weaknesses in the system. The teachers' absenteeism challenge may be giving us a signal on lack of effective supervision at schools, poor management of institutional time, lack of local community interest in the school system and lack of appropriate and timely sanctions to the behaviour.
Curriculum coverage is one of the matter to keep an eye on various figures have been pitched and at the same time contested on the level of curriculum coverage in South African schools. What we know is that our country has high access rate with many learners attending schools and spending more time at school. The challenge to the Department is that curriculum coverage monitoring should be one area of devoted attention if we want to have full grip of what is happening in the classroom. We may blame this to all sorts of problems, but we, at the end of it all, have to monitor curriculum delivery.
Progromme 2 of the department is Curriculum Policy, Support and Monitoring, and when one looks at the set indicators on monitoring and supporting the implementation of National Curriculum Statements (NCS), one notes that the targets are on reading norms, and incremental Introduction to African Languages but none on monitoring curriculum coverage.
Chairperson, the African National Congress will continue to promote the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution, (NDR) to unite all South Africans behind the vision of a united,
non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa. Father of our Notion Nelson Rolihlohlo Mandendela once said; "Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social ills."
Inequality and poverty in our education system, coupled with geographic trap that determine that children would achieve better if they are in a particular area remain a challenge. We are proud that the African National Congress has introduced many initiatives to deal with redress in the education system. But Chairperson, inequality and poverty are becoming a determinant of efficiency and quality. The patterns of migration are teaching us these lessons. Continued calls are there that educational achievement amongst South African children is strongly associated with their socio-economic status. This can change!
Tackling drop-out rate is also a responsibility we have to address, urgently.
The above challenges call for improved quality of teaching and learning, through various support, including sustained Teacher provisioning, development and support, provisioning of Learning and Teaching Support materials (LTSM).
The Third approach to this budget is to respond to the call for skills revolution as mandated in the ANC manifesto. Chairperson The ANC Government needs to use this budget To quantify the costs and implement measures to address redundancy of our children.
Fellow South Africans if truth be told, we cannot boldly tackle the current challenges in our education system, without interrogating the painful past that stereotyped education to deny our people the required skills. Education not only provides children and families with a pathway out of poverty, but it can also yield even bigger returns for the world's poorest countries.
The ANC manifesto calls that doors of learning should be open to call by focusing on quality and innovation to equip young South
Africans for the world of tomorrow. The demands of the 4th Industrial Revolution have a great potential of misplacing our children if they ore not well equipped.
Education must play a significant role in responding to the call for more and decent jobs. Education should also be challenged to contribute in the reduction of employment rate that is currently sitting at 27%. The announcement that we need to strengthen technical and vocational streams is welcome.
The call by the National Development Plan (NDP) that the different parts of the education system should work together allowing learners to take different pathways that offer high quality learning opportunities", should be fully supported.
Considering tight financial constraints, we encourage the Department to come up with a plan within the system and that plan should be supported, resourced and be executed well. The prime to this should be to expand the scope of the schools of skills which currently are skewed only to the favour of the Western Cape Province.
We are also concern that some Universities are playing frustrating games with some learners who recently passed their Grade l2 with some of these subjects. We encourage speedy dialogue between the DBE and Higher Education institution to create seamless articulation for our learners.
Universities must not frustrate learners on this matter by not accepting them into their programmes.
The committee has been assured that priority in this budget would be to develop materials for new technology subjects and specialisations including technical mathematics, and technical sciences, monitoring the training of teachers in technical subjects and developing other guides in support.
We are happy Chairperson that various plans are underway to respond to the demands of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The Department has indicated that in line with the framework for skills for a changing world.
The preparatory work for training for educators and learners to respond to emerging technologies, including internet of things, coding, and official intelligence, is well under way.
I would like to emphasize the fact that of course, try as it might, government on its own cannot achieve our nation's educational goals. We need to harness the energies and resources of the whole nation. It is precisely for this reason that we cannot repeat too often our appreciation of the role of business; progressive non-governmental organisations and community organizations in the transformation of education. [Time expired.]