Hon Minister, hon Chair, the South African education system is malfunctioning and it has a long way to go before it is completely transformed from Bantu education. The rural-urban bias and urban- urban inequalities still persist in our schools.
Though government spends billions of rand on education, the picture on the ground is quite different. From Prof Bhengu to Prof Kader Asmal, from hon Pandor to hon Motshekga, our education system is left with a paradox: the South African education system is divided into rich schools that function optimally and poor schools that are often dysfunctional.
In recent Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality, Sacmeq, III, data analysis, dysfunctional schools were blamed for poor learner performance. Education MECs countrywide describe the lack of infrastructure as a big challenge. Lack of infrastructure is said to be ... [Interjections.]