Chairperson, on 5 June 2006 the DA launched a national campaign around the constitutional right to a basic education, with the release of a document named, and I quote: "Getting the basics right: The state and the right to basic education". Eight days later, the Human Rights Commission released a damming report on the state of our education. The content of the two reports is virtually identical because they drive the same concern.
The Department of Education keeps talking and not doing anything. Our children are lagging behind by in critical standards in critical areas, in which we need more people with skills. If you check carefully, one will see a direct correlation between skills shortage and the areas highlighted as the ones in which we are performing badly as a country.
Principals of non-performing schools should be held accountable. Principalship should not be a lifetime job, but, must be based on performance, just like a Chief Executive Officer of any company would be fired for not bringing results or profits. Some of the teachers are earning what they have not worked for. Root out the nonperformers and bring back those who are willing and have the ability to teach. We have the money, so let us deliver what this nation deserves.
In the last 10 years, each Minister came up with a programme that got abandoned along the way without good explanation on its successes and failures. We were told of an outcomes-based education and there is something else today. Schools are still without libraries or resource centres. Where they exist, books are obsolete. Resources are lying unused because teachers not been trained. The DA will not support this Budget Vote. I thank you.