Chairperson, the Department of Basic Education has been aware for some time of the importance of teaching in the mother tongue. Therefore, it is the policy of the department that at least in the first three years, the language of learning and teaching must be the mother tongue. This does not exclude a first or second additional language. What we have been arguing for is the assimilation and integration of the additional language because by doing that too late, the learner would be disadvantaged in the sense that he or she would have to acquire skills in a new language. But the language of learning and teaching should be a mother-tongue language. This has contributed significantly to the improvement of the results on the basis of assessments that have been undertaken.
The mother-tongue programme is again supported by the Foundations for Learning programme, which pays particular attention to literacy and numeracy. The resource materials of this particular programme are in all 11 official languages. We can state that we have even gone beyond that this year. Every Grade R class in the country has resource materials as well as a guide for educators in each one of the official languages. So, for the first time we have a national curriculum that has been provided to more than 550 000 learners who are in the preparatory classes in the school. We do believe that this will impact positively in terms of performance. Thank you very much, Chairperson and hon member.