Hon Speaker, former President Nelson Mandela once said:
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation.
Education is at the heart of our nation's development. For decades the majority of students in our country were unable to receive a decent education because of the racial discrimination of an illegitimate, minority government.
Mr President, you have often claimed that education is one of the central pillars of your administration. You have devoted massive resources to it and have mentioned its importance in many of your major addresses of state. Despite the welcome admissions of fault from your Minister of Basic Education, your government has mostly refused to address some of the most glaring and, indeed, rectifiable problems in South African education today.
It largely remains the case that, apart from the isolated cases of children who excel in poor communities, there still remains huge inequalities in education in South Africa. If you are a child from a poor home, it is almost guaranteed that you will receive an inferior education in comparison to those from wealthy communities.
There are still thousands of children who walk long distances to school in rural areas. There are still thousands of schools in South Africa that do not have basic library facilities. Teachers still strike and organise union meetings during class hours.
Perhaps no other province better displays these problems than the Eastern Cape. This is clearly illustrated by the recent out-of-court settlement reached with seven mud schools in the province, with the education department agreeing to spend R8 billion on building new schools and revamping all mud hut schools across the country over the next three years.
This happened after numerous pledges from successive ANC governments that such conditions would not be tolerated. The most notable example is former President Mbeki, who made what was eventually an empty pledge to ensure that no child would be taught under a tree.
Furthermore, the Eastern Cape Department of Education overspent by R624,5 million on compensation of employees at the end of September 2010. It is projected that overexpenditure on compensation of employees for the whole financial year will be a staggering R1 952 billion!
A total of R17 372 billion was budgeted for personnel expenditure, which represents 70,6% of the total budget of R22 680 billion for the department for the year 2010-11. One of the main reasons for the overexpenditure was irregular salary increases given to office-based educators in 2009, which pushed up the average employee cost.
The provincial education department recently terminated more than 4 000 temporary teachers' contracts because of the financial crisis. It also suspended its pupil transport programme due to financial constraints. Unfortunately, the litany of crises does not stop there. The Eastern Cape has 108 of the 506 dysfunctional schools, where less than 20% of pupils pass matric.
Eastern Cape schools require almost one million chairs and 750 000 desks. The Eastern Cape has the most schools in the country without libraries and laboratories. Furthermore, the province has the highest number and percentage of schools with more than 50 students in the classroom.
This is, Mr President, to be sure, a shameful state of affairs in the province from which Madiba hails. We applaud Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, for apologising for the state of education in the Eastern Cape. However, one Minister's delayed repentance is not enough; not for this House and certainly not for the students of South Africa in general, and the Eastern Cape in particular.
Mr President, your commitments are commendable, but what we and the students need is action. We urge you to translate this pledge into measurable action for the sake of our country's future and the wishes of Madiba.
Mr President, I have noted every time when you refer to or talk about apartheid, you refer to this side of the House, while on this and that side of the House you have Ministers and Deputy Ministers of the former New National Party. So, I suggest you say, "Apartheid, apartheid, apartheid, apartheid!" to both sides. [Applause.] Thank you.