Apologies, sometimes we get shunted in the aisle, and so I pressed the wrong button next to my colleague. Thank you.
Hon Minister, over the past two years, the Centre for Development and Enterprise, CDE, has conducted groundbreaking research into a highly significant development in South African education, namely the growth of low-fee private schools catering for poorer sectors of the population.
While many, including public officials, see these private schools as fly-by- night institutions, indications in this report are to the contrary. In addition, the view of parents is that these private schools are achieving better results, that the teachers are more accountable, more dedicated, and show greater interest in the children, etc, etc, and there are reasons for it.
What I want to ask is: Is the department looking at this report, and particularly, at the part where these schools are often faced with long and unreasonable delays in obtaining registration? A lot of them appear to be problematic because they cannot get registration. They have been waiting for years to be registered, and others live in fear of losing their registration and being shut down.
There may be something here that indicates we perhaps need to be supporting something that is working and is giving parents some kind of confidence. Thank you.