Hon Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, hon colleagues and members of the NCOP, we would like to express our warm gratitude for the opportunity to report to the NCOP on the steps that we have taken to address swiftly the challenges facing the Eastern Cape department of education. During engagements that we recently held with the provincial department, it became apparent that there were serious challenges in the capacity of the Eastern Cape department of education. This made it difficult for the provincial department to implement a turnaround strategy to overcome the challenges and to ensure that it would act in the best interests of learners from that province.
We further realised that all efforts aimed at bringing about a sustainable turnaround of provincial departments had to effectively address all the critical and underlying challenges and to really help in creating an enabling environment conducive for the efficient and effective delivery of educational services in the province. In view of the seriousness of the situation and at a critical time when we have committed and are hard at work to provide improved quality of basic education, it was resolved at the Cabinet meeting of 2 March 2011 that the Minister of Basic Education would assume responsibility for the areas in which the provincial department was struggling to meet minimum standards and norms of service delivery. Cabinet resolved that this should be done in terms of section 100(1)(b) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996.
Amongst the most recent challenges in the Eastern Cape department of education are the following: overexpenditure of the budget for compensation of employees because the province could not and did not comply with the policies, norms and standards relating to the educator post provisioning. This problem has placed an enormous strain on the overall budget for education in the province, and has impacted on the province's overall budget and spending trends, including failure to provide textbooks and stationery to section 20 schools due to the poor management of the procurement process. Chairperson, you are probably aware of the distinction between section 21 and section 20 schools. Section 21 schools are entitled to purchase their own stationery and textbooks, whereas section 20 schools are provided for by the department.
The suspension of the scholar transport programme due to overspending and the termination of the school nutrition programme before the end of the financial year due to factors such as noncompliance with policy, poor management of the budget and poor supply chain management also occurred.
Chairperson, in terms of this particular aspect, the province, unlike other provinces, had decided to embark on a process where all schools - not only quintiles 1, 2 and 3 schools at primary school level - as well as all high schools, are fed. This has resulted in it becoming impossible for the province to be able to feed within the allocated budget.
The inability to effectively implement the school infrastructure development programme has resulted in funding earmarked for school infrastructure being returned to the National Treasury, even though the province is faced with serious infrastructural backlogs, amongst which I could raise with this House, Chairperson, the fact that we have some 400 mud schools in the province. Whereas we have eliminated these in most of the provinces - except for KwaZulu-Natal, which has about 5 - the Eastern Cape has 400 if not more mud schools, and many unsafe structures.
Since the Cabinet decision on 2 March 2011, the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Basic Education have consulted extensively with the leadership of the province and, in particular, with the premier and the MEC for education. All our discussions with the provincial leadership were conducted in a spirit of co-operation and support. The Department of Basic Education has appointed a technical team comprising senior officials under the leadership of the director-general to develop a problem analysis and draft an intervention plan. This was done working in collaboration with the senior counterparts in the Eastern Cape department of education.
The first draft of this plan was duly completed on 8 March 2011. Subsection 100(2)(a) of the Constitution requires that, when the national executive acts in terms of subsection 1(b), it must submit a notice of the intervention to the NCOP within 14 days of its first sitting after the intervention has begun. Accordingly, as required by the Constitution, a notice regarding this intervention was lodged on Tuesday, 15 March 2011, with the NCOP within the stipulated timeframe. The Council has a duty in terms of subsection 100(2)(b) to consider approving or disapproving the intervention. This should occur within 180 days of the intervention. In the event that the Council approves, it must review the intervention regularly and make any appropriate recommendations to the national executive. Should the Council disapprove, the intervention must then end. The intervention includes taking over the above-mentioned functions and working collaboratively with the Eastern Cape department of education to address the current challenges which I have referred to.
We intend to build the capacity in the province to allow the Eastern Cape education department to resume its functions as soon as possible. However, I might caution that the intention is to ensure that the intervention would be one where we would make a sustainable difference systemically within the department of education, so that we do not have a situation where we have entered, intervened and have left, and yet the problems haven't been adequately addressed. The Chairperson of the NCOP, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education and the Chairperson of the Select Committee on Education and Recreation have been informed of this intervention.
Hon Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, in terms of the Rules of the NCOP, when an executive decision is taken to intervene in terms of section 100, a notice must be sent to the House by the Minister responsible for provincial affairs. The Acting Minister has indeed signed such a notice in addition to the notification from the Department of Basic Education. The relevant Minister, in terms of the Rules of the NCOP, has indeed delivered such a notice to the NCOP. The Cabinet decision of 2 March 2011 to invoke section 100(1)(b) of the Constitution was taken consciously to resolve the challenges in the Eastern Cape department of education, and to provide for the continued delivery of quality learning and teaching in the province. The ruling party has a responsibility to ensure that our clear goal of improved quality of basic education - the first, the pre-apex, the pre- eminent priority - is met across the country.
It is expressly for this reason that we have taken proactive steps better to strengthen the provision of education services in the Eastern Cape. I herewith formally notify the NCOP of the decision of the Cabinet with regard to the national intervention in the Eastern Cape education department, and trust that the NCOP will - as always - approve this timely and crucial intervention and duly support it. I thank you for your kind attention. [Applause.]