Madam Deputy Speaker, Comrade President, Deputy President, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and our dear guests - the students from Cape Town High School, "Heita da". [Applause.]
Education is an important weapon in genuinely empowering our people. It is for this reason that the slogan, "People's Education for People's Power", remains as relevant today as it was in the 1980s.
The entire edifice of what we refer to as colonialism of a special type was built on the foundation of depriving the black majority of education. It is precisely in the education terrain that we must also seek the total liberation of the majority of our people from poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and skills paucity.
Education must be at the centre of skilling our people, to prepare them for employment, for decent work and sustainable livelihoods. Skills development is also central to job creation and decent work, as was ably articulated by the President in his address.
However, education is more than just preparation for employment; it is also about empowerment for meaningful participation in society, for knowledge, scientific and technological advancement as well as for innovation. Precisely because of these features, education must of necessity reflect us as a people; who we are and where we want to be.
Our education system must also teach and learn from the story of our colonial and apartheid past, about the heroic struggles for national liberation. It must prepare our people to tackle our developmental challenges, envisaged growth path, globalisation and how we wish to participate in the world.
It is for all of these reasons that this government has placed education as one of its five priorities. We must reaffirm the correctness of the President's decision to create two separate education departments focusing on schooling and post-school education and training, respectively.
It may still be too early to evaluate all the achievements of having two education departments, but the President's decision to make this split is beginning to bear some fruit by allowing a greater focus on the key challenges in two sectors.
The education system at all levels has made considerable progress over the past 17 years and continues to do so. The most obvious gain has been the advances we have made with regard to improving access to education. Approximately 96% of children now have access to schools in South Africa. [Applause.]
In 2009, the gross enrolment ratio for Grades 1 to 12 was 92% and the gender parity has already been obtained. The National School Nutrition Programme is now reaching some eight million school children. In Higher Education, the numbers have almost doubled since 1994, with the total enrolment now nearing 900 000 university students. Between 2000 and 2009, the growth in enrolments was approximately 50% and the growth in graduates was 64%, meaning that the throughput rate has been improving, although it still has a long way to go. We now have more female than male students in our university system. [Applause.]
The biggest challenge identified by the Department of Basic Education is that of improving the quality of education, and virtually all the interventions of the Department of Basic Education are aimed at achieving this.
In line with the President's directive on the three Ts - teachers, text and time - the biggest priority of the Department of Basic Education is the improvement of learning outcomes in maths, science and literacy through a variety of activities. These include assessment tests in Grades 3, 6 and 9; increasing Grade R enrolment; one textbook per child per subject; workbooks for all students; targeted teacher education that focuses on areas identified in tests as requiring attention; training of principals; adequate district support to schools; and infrastructure development.
In addition, the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit, Needu, will be launched to ensure that the schooling system is effectively monitored and evaluated. This will also include specific interventions where there are problem areas, as we are currently doing now in the case of the Eastern Cape. [Applause.] Hon W G James, don't come here and tell us about the problems that we already know about and the many challenges that we have. Rather tell us how to implement these measures, because we are concrete, and the President in his state of the nation address was also very concrete - here is what we want to do! You are not engaging with that.
Don't have sleepless nights about Sadtu. We don't stare down Sadtu; we engage Sadtu and we will move along with Sadtu to transform education in this country. [Applause.]
These initiatives will assist us to improve the quality of schooling. As the quality of schooling improves, it in turn improves the capabilities of students entering universities and colleges or entering learnerships and apprenticeships.
The 2010 improved matric results are a testimony to the fact that we are beginning to put our schooling system on an even better footing. But unfortunately, from the media and the opposition benches, we have the same ritual every year. If the matric results are bad, this is taken as a proof that this government of "darkies" is incapable. [Applause.] If the matric pass rate goes up, it means the results have been manipulated by these "darkies". [Applause.]
In either case, the sneering, arrogant tone of this discourse, which, frankly, is often racist, is aimed at undermining the confidence of our people in both our education system and our government - and they will not succeed in that. [Applause.]
In the field of Higher Education and Training ... [Interjections.]