Chairperson and hon members, an education system is dynamic and never static and it is for that reason that laws related to it should and will be amended to answer to the demands of the day. It will be up to the Minister, who has the barometer of the department, to know when the pressure is high or low and thereupon establish a national education and training council to advise him or her.
During the public hearings much was said about the principal of a school being left as an independent individual. This argument is absurd in the extreme. A principal by virtue of his position is ipso facto in the same ring as the department.
As an education officer in my past life, I used to say that a principal is the department on the spot. There is no way that an appointed person will align himself with the school governing body at the expense of the department. In fact, principals are being empowered through this to run their schools, otherwise the schools will run them down if they do not look up to him.
As matters now stand, the UCDP will find it hard to accept the clause on the prescription of minimum uniform norms and standards in respect of infrastructure and all that, because there are still areas where pupils are taught under trees or in the open, let alone those being taught in mud roundavel hovels, like the chairperson indicated. The clause is, however, an ideal to strive for.
The disruptive conduct of learners in schools calls for random searches and drug testing. There is nothing sinister about all this as long as it is done in a humane and responsible manner by teachers who know that they are to stand in loco parentis to come up as reasonable parents. The UCDP will therefore support the Bill.