Chairperson, the ACDP notes the budget allocation for the department sitting at some R108 billion. We welcome the allocation of R135,4 million for computer services, the second largest line item in goods and services as we prepare our students for what is commonly known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Department's 2019/20 budget has to sustain 50 TVET colleges, with 264 campuses across the country and 26 universities, with at least one university in each of the nine provinces. Within the education sector, 2018/19 basket allocation, the Department of Basic Education receives some R262,4 billion, Department of Higher Education some R108,3 billion, a total of R370,3 billion, or more than 20% of our national budget.
It must be mentioned that South Africa spends more, per capita, and as a percentage of our GDP, on education than most of our counterparts, and yet produces some of the poorest results. The last Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, revealed that, as many as 78% of our Grade four learners in South Africa are not able to read in any language. The picture in Maths and Science is not encouraging either. When compared to our Kenyan counterparts, our Grade six students were found to be more functionally illiterate and innumerate. Our students must be able to comprehend, for example, that a plus b remains a plus b, because you cannot add unlike terms. Our students must be able to comprehend that a times b equals ab, and a times a equals a square, because you are multiplying common bases and you add the indices. Our students must be able to comprehend that, if you want to find the roots of a quadratic equation, that x equals minus b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac over 2a - and I'm not speaking in Latin - our students ... it is important if we want to improve the quality of higher education.
It is important because it speaks to the quality of our student who enters the corridors of higher education. It is important
because we set our students up for failure, if they are not adequately prepared at foundation and basic education phases. It is important because we cannot engage in social, sexual engineering programs in basic education, by making history a compulsory subject, and teaching our children how to engage in masturbation, oral, anal and same sex, through Comprehensive Sexuality Education, while simultaneously wanting to promote maths, science and coding. This is political and educational schizophrenia. It is important because if we wish to have higher learning institutions of excellence, we must address the paralyzing effect of unions in our schools.