Chairperson, hon Deputy President, hon members and guests, as we celebrate International Women's Day in 2011 under the theme, "Equal Access To Education, Training and Science and Technology: Pathway to Decent Work for Women", I want to focus on the April 2000 Dakar Framework and take two points from the Education for All declarations.
In the first declaration, Asian and African governments undertook to expand and improve comprehensive childcare and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
Most of our ECD - early childhood development - centres are still run by unqualified ECD practitioners who do not have standardised or uniform conditions of service. While we know that the minimum qualifications for a person to be a teacher after April 2008 is REQV 13 or REQV 14 - Relative Education Qualification Value - there is no minimum set for ECD practitioners.
Their work cannot be referred to as decent work. They are paid irregularly. Some of them are paid once per quarter. Many ECD practitioners, needless to say, are women.
In villages and rural areas that have no electricity and water, it is the girl-child who has to collect firewood and water, at times early in the morning before going to school.
As a country we have done reasonably well in eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education. Our statistics show that there is parity and, in some instances, girls outnumber boys. But the Dakar Framework also talks about access to quality education, not just education.
The other challenge that we still have to deal with is access to opportunities in the work environment. This is because it does not help to have parity and equal access to education while there is no equal access to opportunities. Azapo salutes all women. Thank you. [Time expired.]