In responding to some of the concerns highlighted, the Department stated that much of the concerns were not policy issues but issues of implementation. Although the Eastern Cape accounted for a significant portion of the National drop-out rate of 17.1percent, the repetition rate was not properly captured. Many learners left Grade 9 and enrolled at FET Colleges. The Department was engaged with vacation classes and winter schools which were running parallel to the CAPS training programme. It was indicated that the Eastern Cape was leading in respect of schools that were not educationally viable. This unfortunately meant that the merging of schools would be effected. It was stated that the Department was facing many challenges and was neither effective nor efficient. The attrition rate within the Department was very high. The Department was attempting to move forward in respect of the payment all temporary educators. Part of the challenge was that parents did not register their children within the stipulated times, which affected the post-provisioning norms. Regarding the payment of tranches (allocations) the problem was that schools operated within the calendar year, whereas the Department operated within the financial year. There had been numerous occasions where schools' banking payments were returned resulting in non-payment.