Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Deputy Chairperson, hon members, MECs for Education, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I would like to thank you for affording me the opportunity to address this Council today during the Budget Vote of the Department of Higher Education and Training.
I would like to convey an apology on behalf of the Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, who was looking forward to this opportunity, but, due to other commitments, could not be with us today. I also welcome my family up there, my daughter and my husband.
Hon members, our theme for this year is: Working together for improved access to quality education and skills development. We are here, to debate our Budget Vote against the backdrop of the historical and world-renowned Soweto uprising of June 16, 1976.
Thirty-five years down the line a great deal has changed. We are in a democracy and have realised our political freedom. Commemorations of June 16 are about us and our history. We therefore have to ensure that the Soweto uprising as not in vain and that we don't only pay tribute to the youth of 1976, but also strive to achieve their desired outcomes.
Hon members, this budget speaks to those noble outcomes - namely quality education and training. It also speaks to the issues of race, class, age, gender, disability, language, geography and HIV and Aids. The National Skills Development Strategy 3 deals with these issues decisively.
Firstly, it is important to reflect on the 2011 state of the nation address, in which President Jacob Zuma emphasised that the focus of Higher Education and Training would be to expand access, especially for children of the poor. We are aware that currently we have about three million young people between the ages of 18 and 24 that are neither in employment nor in education and training institutions. This budget is dedicated largely to these marginalised young people who live in the poorest communities in the provinces that you represent.
Government's prioritisation of education is evident in the budget allocation of 19,4% of the total national Budget to Higher Education and Training. Higher Education and Training has been allocated R37,4 billion. I will now only focus on provincially relevant programmes.
Hon members, we are aware of the urgent need to transform current higher education and training; hence the creation of our department. Key in this, is the renewal of the further education and training sector. The Further Education and Training Colleges Amendment Bill, which seeks to replace the authority of the MEC and HOD with that of the Minister and Director-General of Higher Education and Training, has already been through a public consultation process. The amendment will shortly serve before this House. Further, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has already published a draft amendment to the Constitution for public comment. We are also embarking on an intensive Green Paper process to bring together policy on the post-school system.
Funding for FET colleges has increased from R4,12 billion to R5,56 billion in this budget. This is an incredible 35% increase. The FET colleges financial aid allocation increased from R318 million in 2010 to R1,235 billion in 2011, which translates to an unprecedented 288%. This gives effect to the announcement by the hon President of the Republic of South Africa, President Jacob Zuma, in his 8 January statement this year that all FET college students who are recipients of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS, will receive bursaries instead of loans. This means that more than 169 000 eligible students will benefit, as compared to 61 705 in the previous financial year. Provincially, the bursary beneficiaries have almost about tripled compared to last year.
Since the introduction of the National Certificate Vocational in 2007, the department has noted the need to review the qualifications offered at colleges so as to ensure that they serve their intended purpose. The ministerial task team has been appointed by the department to begin to assist in developing our thinking in this direction.
The extension of the Report 191 Programmes, the so called N courses, will enable us to meet the targeted requirement of producing 10 000 artisans per annum. Additional funding has been allocated towards the increased student enrolment from 77 210 to 89 355 in the N1-N6 Programmes.
In addition, the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations, QCTO, is focusing its efforts on updating the artisan qualifications beyond N1-N3.
In provinces like the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, such opportunities already exist. However, in provinces such as the Free State, the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape, we are still facing some challenges, given the absence of the business sector. We will therefore call upon the government departments, state-owned enterprises, municipalities, and education and training institutions to work together in providing and creating work experience opportunities for students.
We are also doing work to strengthen and support private FET colleges. The Further Education and Training Act, Act 98 of 1998, and the regulations for the registration according to the relevant sections of the law provides that everyone has the right to establish and maintain, at their own expense, independent educational institutions.
In light of these legal injunctions, and within the context of the vision statement of the department, the department has embarked on regulating and supporting private colleges.
With regard to Adult Basic Education and Training, Abet, hon members, the allocation for the Adult Basic Education and Training programme in provinces rises from R1,346 billion in 2010-11 to R1,444 billion in 2011- 12. This is an increase of 7,3%. This will enable us to meet the target of 27 500 adult learners.
The department has established a task team which is responsible for the reconceptualisation of the nature and role of the Adult Basic Education and Training centres, as well as the introduction of community education and skills centres. We are acutely aware that the Department of Higher Education and Training needs a presence in the provinces. Our initial plans for this financial year include the securing of suitable premises for one office per province with three core staff. The functions of these offices will be to co-ordinate, support, liaise and to provide career advisory services.
In addition, these offices will link with the provincial skills development forums in the premiers' offices, as well as with the Department of Labour and provincial education departments, universities, Setas and other relevant government departments and stakeholders.
With regard to universities, hon members, we have the mandate to focus on previously disadvantaged universities and to begin with a turnaround strategy so that we are not stuck in the language of the historically disadvantaged.
We are also pleased to announce that this budget has plans for the building of two new universities in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape. The chairpersons of both provincial task teams have submitted their draft reports on the establishment, and the final reports are due soon. We have already begun developing a technical framework that takes into account, inter alia, the infrastructural requirements of the new universities, the legal requirements, governance arrangements, academic planning, architecture, including the programmes and qualifications to be offered, staffing and many other transitional arrangements. An amount of R300 million has been allocated for the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, period 2011-12 to 2013-14, which will be utilised for the initial establishment of these institutions.
Hon members, I cannot emphasise enough the contribution these two institutions will make towards improving access to higher education opportunities for students coming from these two provinces.
We find it unacceptable that universities have, in the past, withheld student qualification certificates due to money being owed to them. Students who receive their qualification certificates have a better chance to enter the job market. As a result, an amount of R200 million has been allocated to assist 25 000 undergraduate and postgraduate students who met the requirements but couldn't get their certificates due to the outstanding fees. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS, will manage the allocation of these funds.
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme levies interest on student loans from the date the students signed for the loan. In future that will change. The NSFAS will only start charging interest on student loans 12 months after a student has graduated or left the university.
The department is also concerned that 69 107 of our students who owe fees have been blacklisted with credit bureaus. We have directed NSFAS to remove the names of all students that they have blacklisted with the credit bureau. My department is further engaging with the National Credit Regulator and universities on this matter to explore ways of ensuring that these young graduates are able to pay back their loans and to start working immediately.
Overall, my department has set a target of 12 000 new school teachers to be graduating annually from universities by 2014. The university system will be supported to expand capacity to achieve this target.
With regard to the National Skills Fund, NSF, the sector education and training authorities, Setas, have, through the National Skills Development Strategy 3, been directed to ensure that priority areas in skills development are addressed. The National Skills Fund is a national resource that will function as a catalytic fund enabling the state to drive key strategies, such as the New Growth Path, the rural development strategy, and the human resource development strategy for South Africa.
One critical factor for government's ability to deliver massively on skills development is the availability of adequate capacity and infrastructure. Some examples of NSF - supported projects, at a cost of R19,6 million, are in the following provinces: in the Eastern Cape, 62 co-operatives; in KwaZulu-Natal, 141 co-operatives; and in Mpumalanga, 130 co-operatives.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we live in the best of times and also in the worst of times. From the tabled budget it is clear that there are significant and fundamental transformative steps are being introduced. The bold policy positions, while welcomed by many, have evoked strong resistance and sabotage from those who are failing to take a long-term view of what equal and quality education can do in building a sustainable country, in solidarity with the continent and other countries of the world with whom we share the same burden of decolonising the mind. We are calling upon all our MEC's and heads of our learning centres, including our institutions of higher learning, to pay close attention to our curricula. The investments we are making in education will not be evaluated in terms of numbers, but in terms of the quality of our learners.
There are lessons to be learned from Paulo Freire's work on education for critical consciousness. In simple terms, the thrust of his work was that education should not only be about how to read, but also how to understand the material and sociopolitical conditions under which people live.
We all want our learners to get jobs, but we also need to prepare them in such a way that they become agents of change at the workplace, so as to fast-track the dismantling of resistance tactics, which have become the swelling ground of hidden tensions between the haves and the have-nots. Remember that no country in the world has ever grown the economy and created jobs without considerable investment in socially appropriate education.
I would like to thank the Minister in his absence, the acting director- general, my office and the department for all the support they have given me since my appointment as the Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training. I thank you. [Applause.]