Madam Speaker, recently, hon Lindiwe Mazibuko, the parliamentary leader of the DA, challenged the ANC to match the DA's textbook delivery in the Western Cape. Firstly, let us be clear: The ANC regarded education as a key priority delivery area long before the DA ventured onto the political scene. [Interjections.] The ANC cared about educating the majority of people in the country ... [Interjections.] ... at a time when black children, particularly Africans, were receiving substandard education back in 1976.
Secondly, as the ruling party, the ANC's commitment to education extends beyond one province and, as such, it focuses on the bigger picture rather than on an island. The ANC has a responsibility to all citizens, not merely to the white and the privileged residing in Cape Town, like the DA.
Thirdly, we consider the building of more schools as being vital to advancing and improving the quality of education - not closing down 27 schools purely because it is expedient, as the DA is planning to do in the Western Cape. Adequate reasons for the closure of these schools have not yet been forwarded, thus the appeal filed by the Equal Education Law Centre on behalf of Equal Education.
The appeal demands that the DA MEC furnishes the names of the schools that the department was considering closing, matric pass rates for the relevant schools for 2010 and 2011, a list naming all the underperforming schools in the province, with their pass rates for the past two years, and supporting documentation indicating processes that the department was intending to follow in closing these schools. We await the outcome. [Applause.]