Deputy Chairperson, hon members and Minister of Defence and Military Veterans sitting right next to me, I am lucky and safe.
In five minutes I cannot do justice to the many important issues that have been raised by members, which I would say, on the whole, reflected the fact that the House is really grappling with the issue of higher education and training.
Obviously, some of the things that are being raised are things that we are doing, but of course it does not mean that if we are doing them we are not benefiting from ideas on how we could do them better or differently.
Therefore, I will just mention very few things quickly, given the time. I would like to make a proposal perhaps along the lines of what the chairperson said when he opened this session. Maybe at the beginning of the year we need a much more intense engagement with the relevant select committee. One platform that would help us is that sometime in January I will be releasing a Green Paper on post-school education and training for public debate. We can use that as a platform to actually engage on a whole range of issues as well as to report on other issues.
Indeed, I do agree with hon member Mncube that it is very significant that I am standing exactly where Verwoerd used to sit to share measures that are aimed at burying that terrible legacy. Chairperson, it's a nice revenge in many ways.
I would like also to inform members that between now and, I hope, April next year I will be doing road shows in all the provinces on post school education and training with a focus more on trying to facilitate engagements around skills development in relation to the needs and priorities in each province.
I am starting in KwaZulu-Natal on the 18th. I hope to do Gauteng before the end of the year and then continue with the rest of the provinces for the first three to four months next year. Members, I assure you that we will try to give you information, and urge you to participate.
I want to talk very quickly about the issue of the two universities in the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga. I have received the two reports from the teams that I had asked to do this work. Also, we have now drafted and completed an implementation plan. The next step is that I'll go and discuss this with the premiers of those provinces.
I can assure you that there is progress. I will announce it at an appropriate time once I have engaged the principals. We know that we are not the principals because we account to you here. It is important that they don't hear through the media that I was at the NCOP.
The issue of expanding post school education and training is about the need to massify colleges and increase the numbers drastically. I was going to say to the hon member from Cope that I'm worried about the way in which he talks about post school training because he is essentially talking about postmatric and university routes.
We have to reverse this trend that we have now; the trend of three university students to one college student. The ratio should be the opposite. No country does what we are doing.
In addition, what we are doing is that I have asked the department to do an audit of all post-school institutions, whether it is an empty building, former colleges that are sitting there or also the ones that are being used. Our thinking is that we would like to move forward and increasingly use our institutions as multipurpose educational institutions. Further education and training, FET, finishes at 15:00 and those buildings are then not used. Why not offer a university education in the evenings for those who are working in the same buildings? Or you can offer basic literacy. We are doing an audit to get a sense of what the usage is of all our institutions, including universities.
In order to really turn our country around we need a Sunday to Sunday kind of post-school education and training so that even those plumbers who work for themselves and have no time to upgrade themselves will be able to go to an FET college on a Saturday or Sunday in order to be able to upgrade themselves.
The other matter I thought I needed to raise is that we are doing interventions in the Eastern Cape around the state and quality of these places. Well, we are doing this nationally. We are giving additional attention to the FET colleges in the Eastern Cape because we are worried about their state of functioning.
It is not only in the Eastern Cape, but also in many other provinces as well where colleges are not in an optimal state, but the Eastern Cape was a bit of a problem. We have a dedicated team which is working there because we want to do precisely what we are saying. There are lots of opportunities that we can exploit in bringing these FET colleges closer to employers in the private and public sectors.
I won't mention the other intervention that I recently made in relation to a particular university because it might upset my colleague, the Minister here, who always insists that if we are talking about negative things regarding Walter Sisulu University, we must not use its full title. We mustn't say that Walter Sisulu University has problems; we must rather say WSU has problems.
However, if it's a positive thing that the university is doing then we must say Walter Sisulu University is doing very well. [Laughter.] We are doing some interventions at WSU as well in order to ensure that that university receives inputs.
Chairperson, allow me very quickly to say two last things. I am aware that I have gone beyond the time allowed, but I am very happy that we have agreed to share. I agree with the issue of critical thinking and curriculum transformation. We can share some of the interventions that we are also doing.
Lastly, we are hoping that the President in his state of the nation address next year will make some very critical announcements about infrastructure investment for the postschool education and training landscape. We are doing a lot of work.
I have heard complaints that there are no FET colleges in this or that place. We will not be able to build campuses all at the same time, but we are prioritising areas where there is nothing. One or two of the areas that have been mentioned here may be lucky enough to get a campus next year.
I am not able to say those things now until we are able to do further work under the leadership of the President, especially the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission.
Thank you very much. Ngiyabonga kakhulu zingane zakwethu. [I thank you very much, my brethren.] [Applause.]
Debate concluded.