Hon Chair, please permit me to start by referring to section 29 of the Constitution, which provides as follows: Everyone has the right to a basic education, including adult basic education; and to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible.
Today's budget proposal for basic education should be assessed on whether the present government has achieved the above-named constitutional right, and if not, what is it that the department is going to do to ensure that it achieves it. To ensure that, yes, indeed, the constitutional rights of the children of our country and the people as a whole are achieved.
Cope, just like millions of other South Africans, moves from the position that our people have a right to basic education, and that right occupies the highest position given the history of our people and our country.
However, Cope is convinced that the present government has and continues to fail to ensure that millions of South Africans get access to basic education, despite the directive to the Minister through section 5(a) of the SA Schools Act.
For example, in 2007, the Education Laws Amendment Act 31 of 2007 was passed to ensure that the norms and standards for school infrastructure get implemented. Those norms and standards would address, inter alia, the building and all improvements on classes that were never implemented at all.
In 2008, the Minister published a set of national uniform Draft Regulations Relating to Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure. Even though the Minister had committed to urgent implementation, there was no implementation. The same and even extra promises were made in 2012 and early this year, but there has not been movement. Instead, what we have is the rise in problems and nondelivery. I will give examples. If we talk about school infrastructure, we would say that hundreds of thousands of children drop out of school and millions of those who remain in school receive education of a poor quality. They sit in overcrowded and dilapidated classrooms and lack textbooks. Many schools around the country need more classes and rehabilitation.
In the Eastern Cape, for example, in the Alfred Nzo District Municipality, there are more than 10 mud schools and in the Amathole District Municipality, we have more than 30 mud schools.
Many schools in Limpopo are in a very bad state. Some lack roofs, others are leaking, there are holes in the floor and windows are broken. For example, at Jaji Secondary School, teachers and pupils are forced to open umbrellas in classrooms when it is raining because of the leaks in the roof. [Interjections.] You don't know about the place we are talking about. In Silverton in Limpopo, children are taught under marula trees.
When the Treasury announced in their budget speech that R430 billion has been allocated to social infrastructure, including schools, we were hoping that they would inform Parliament about the R7,2 million taken away from the School Infrastructure programme to replace mud schools and to catch up on backlogs in school infrastructure. This is because of the slow spending by both the department and the Development Bank of South Africa, the DBSA, which was asked to implement the programme. This means that the gap in infrastructure needs will continue to grow.
Many more schools will still lack access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation and electricity. Many children, for many years to come, will continue learning under the trees and in environments that are not suitable for learning and teaching. The government, on the other hand, will continue to make promises to improve education. An antithesis, of cause, shall be the case. The budget deficit, which is beyond a trillion, will continue to grow while government expenditure is out of control to breaking point.
What about the textbooks? Textbooks are a fundamental resource to both teachers and students. The timeous provision of textbooks remains a problem in our country. Many schools in South Africa, for example - again in Limpopo - in the Eastern Cape, in the Northern Cape and in the North West are without the required textbooks in this second term of schooling. Many other schools were given the wrong batches of books.
In a survey conducted last month by Pondering Panda, it was found that 54% of pupils countrywide did not have all the textbooks. This lack of textbooks shows again that the quality of education in South Africa is suffering tremendously, and that the education crisis is sapping the education system's energy and funds.
Now there is this very bad thing that Cope is convinced about, that the high levels of corruption add to the lack of access to school material by pupils and teachers. I will give you an example. Yes, the Limpopo textbook saga highlights the magnitude of corruption.
EduSolutions, which was reported to have links with President Zuma, won a bid before the tender was published in the media and the Government Tender Bulletin. A contract to the amount of R680 million awarded to EduSolutions for textbooks, educational toys, science kits and other materials for the 2011 school year is now under investigation by the Special Investigative Unit. We need to follow this because it is a major problem, and indeed the people of South Africa continue to suffer as a result of this kind of corruption that people are protecting here. [Interjections.] Not one, but four.
In the Funda Lushaka Bursary Scheme, there is no substitute for good teachers. The expansion of primary enrolment has put enormous pressure on the supply of teachers.