Madam Chairperson, I know it is very late. There are rumbles in certain parts of our anatomies. I have always enjoyed coming to this House and therefore I will be using my 10 minutes to review matters, although the chairperson of the committee has answered some of the questions. I will be using my 10 minutes because I get a sense of enjoyment by being here in this House.
I begin with an apology. I am not going to lay into Mr Rajoo. I apologise to him. The last time I was here, I said I would have expected something more from a former student of mine. I apologised to him. We were contemporaries. I do not know which is worse. Should I expect much more from a contemporary or from a former student? So, I apologise.
Firstly, I am grateful for the little mercy that the DP has condescended from on high to support this measure and, that in that great outpouring of altruism, will give support for education development. I hope he will have a word with the spokesperson of the Other Place, Mr Ellis. Mr Ellis shoots from the hip almost all the time and, invariably, when one shoots from the hip one shoots oneself in the foot. I hope he will have a word with Mr Ellis not only on outcomes-based education, but also because we need to remove partisanship, in light of the extraordinary terrible period we went through in 1995-1996 to remove that. I think that the DP has a special role to play in that, because it adopts this highly partisan position.
The second point I would like to make is that some of the contributions have really been overtaken by events. I would like to ask special and permanent delegates to liaise much more with the MECs. This Bill was discussed at Cabinet level. This was discussed at length by the council of educational ministers and the MECs. They unanimously supported the provisions of the Bill. In fact, in clause 7 which deals with the appointment of the Chair, both the Cabinet, under Minister Buthelezi, and MEC Helen Zille insisted that there should not be nominations from the council, but that I should appoint, absolutely, the chairperson of the council.
But because of the representations made, we adopted this other formula. In other words, I think there should be closer co-ordination with the MECs. Of course the New NP may have genuine difficulties with the spokesperson of the Western Cape. They have a somewhat detached relationship with her. I sympathise with them very strongly because they have a semi-detached relationship with her, but for others there is really no excuse. Therefore many of the issues raised, for example by Mrs Bopalamo, were in fact dealt with in the committee. They were dealt with by the study groups, and they are reflected in the Bill.
This council is totally independent of the Minister. It is absolutely independent. The only issue that arises is in terms of the Public Finance Management Act, because so many of these councils have not been carrying out the proper financial controls over them. This council will be funded as all other professional councils are funded - and I would like to point this out to Mrs Bopalamo - by the members. And there is no reason why 360 000 members paying a small levy could not conduct a modest outfit and arrangement among themselves. No other council is, but why is it necessary for an independent council to have the chairperson appointed under clause 7(1)?
Other professional councils do not enjoy great public esteem. For example, as an advocate I speak particularly about the bar council. They investigate complaints among themselves in private, and hardly publish their report. As for the law society, it takes the versatility and the persistence of journalists, particularly journalists with a nose for information, to come out with a scandal about the abuse, for example, of the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund. It was a little journalist who did that in the first place. We have to get away from this comfortable conspiracy of professional bodies, and that is why we have clause 7(1) to improve the status of the teaching profession and the council. This is particularly important for the New NP, because this is an attempt by this Bill to ensure that there is greater participation.
I think we are one the first countries in the world to insert a role for the governing bodies in the council, and also for other school bodies rather than the state schools bodies. Particularly important are the five people who will be appointed by the department after full consultation with the MECs, people of international status and standing, so that there will not be a closed network of broeders, as we used to call them - sisters never got a look-in before. Now we want people who are not only broadly representative, but also strong people who will really look after the public interest.
The point that therefore arises is that I hope - and I would like to say this to Mrs Bopalamo - that this will not be like the medical and lawyers' outfits. I hope this will be very different. If one tries to get a doctor, for example here or in England or anywhere else, to give evidence against another doctor, one cannot get him or her to do so. That is the kind of masonic closed world we must get away from.
So the next point is that there is an enormous difference between professional ethics being broken and discipline. The disciplinary matter is between employer and employee. That is a disciplinary matter - breach of the contract of employment, nonattendance, nonservice. Breach of the law of the country, for example, is a serious matter. That is why I brought my traditional weapons here, which were confiscated the other day. [Laughter.] It is a breach of the law of the country to beat children. That is a contractual matter.
If a finding is made by the employer, then the finding, in principle, should be referred to the council for educators. There should be rules that will be worked out. The Council of Educators must look at that, but independently of the breach of the contract of employment, on the basis of public complaints. That is how it will work. I am not going to raise complaints with them. They are an independent body. The public now must assert their right if the ethics and the rules of ethical behaviour have been broken by individual teachers. They call them ``educators'' in the legislation, but the old-fashioned word ``teachers'', I think, is much better.
We must encourage the public to be sensitive about the needs of the parents and their own rights, so that they can make representations and complaints. There will not be a flood of complaints. We know that. But we must help and encourage people in an open democracy in that there is a professional body out there that seeks to assert and maintain the status of the teaching profession. So, I say that many of these points have been made, but member Suka has raised a very important point on these cash colleges. They are the reason why we must lift the status of the public educational system.
I have said to this House that we must all have a conviction about the value of the public educational system, for poor Afrikaners, for poor blacks, for Indians and coloureds, for all of us, and for the middle-class people in particular. Because, if the middle-class people do not send their children to public schools, then, immediately, standards deteriorate. Middle-class people are very articulate. They write to newspapers, they write to the Minister, they write to the clergy and all that. They write to everybody who has a public life.
That is why it is very important that we should lift the status of the public school system. These cash colleges are of two kinds. One is the cash college for higher education, which we are now seriously dealing with, because overseas cash colleges in particular, are coming here.
We are dealing with this very seriously, and we will prosecute the one so- called television training company, which has its headquarters inside the SABC, ``nogal''! They are illegally operating the training college inside the SABC. We will prosecute them. So, we are looking after higher education.
However, the proliferation of so-called secretarial colleges, intermediate colleges, computer colleges, high school level, and all kinds of colleges, are a menace and a scandal. We are now working with the provinces. We will have to work out, over the next six months, registration processes for them. If they do not register, we will throw the book at them, and prosecution and public vigilance are the way we are going to maintain standards of any kind here. I say, therefore, that Mr Suka's point is very important, but the answer to that is that our parents must have confidence in the public education system.
I think this Bill will help in a little way. In the end, it is the assertiveness and the democracy of ordinary people who want the highest standards, from doctors and lawyers, and we are concerned here with educators. With the support of members and their continued involvement, in a nonpartisan way, I think we can feel, as I always felt 42 years ago when I became a teacher, that this is the noblest profession of them all.
We can bring back that public appreciation of this extraordinary group of people who have done so much good in the past. We will now bring them back to centre stage in our educational system. [Applause.]