Hon Deputy Speaker, I think the last remark is perhaps the most pertinent one - that we are indeed a two- nation model. We have the more affluent communities in better resourced schools, where they have the ability and capacity to have better educators, and we have those in the remote rural areas with fewer resources in terms of amenities, laboratories and libraries. Those are the realities that we cannot ignore. You have made the comment, I have not, and I am saying I endorse it. It means the challenges are far greater.
There must be recognition of the fact that a large number - in fact, millions of our learners - had been excluded from the system of education in the past. As a result of democracy, we can now celebrate the fact that more than 99% of our learners who ought to be in primary school are, indeed, in primary school. However, that does not detract from the responsibility of ensuring that we promote literacy and numeracy. To that extent, we now distribute more than 52 million books on literacy and numeracy between Grade R and Grade 9 annually, because we recognise the problem. No country on this continent has ever gone to the extent that we have where we have tested six million learners from Grade 1 to Grade 6 in terms of literacy and numeracy.
This year, from 18 to 22 September, in the second year of the programme of annual national assessment, seven million children are going to be tested - that includes the Grade 9s - on literacy and numeracy, because we have a diagnostic assessment, a baseline. We can determine precisely whether they progress or regress, where the areas in need of intervention are, and what avenues of intervention we should be exploring in terms of enhancing literacy and numeracy.
We are not pretending that we have a literate community, but we should look at statistics elsewhere. We should look at Tanzania, for example, where less than 50% of its eligible population goes to high school because they are selected on the basis of merit. We have almost universal enrolment in our high schools. Tanzania has less than 50%, so what you see in terms of those results are that the best among the population is at high school.
I think in terms of access we have done extremely well, but I think in terms of quality we have huge challenges, and we have not pretended that we do not have these challenges. We are affirming that, but we are saying that we are doing something positive. Certainly, all political parties and parents should mobilise and ensure that their children utilise these workbooks because they are recognised as being of an extremely high quality, to the extent that the private schools want to procure them from the Department of Basic Education. Thank you very much.