Chairperson, there is much in this budget and strategic plan to approve of. It appears there has been a shifting away in the thinking of the department from nave theorising towards actually getting the job done of educating our people as a means to lift them out of poverty. The bottom line should be that this department is not there to serve only some interest groups but to actually educate our kids to create independent-minded, thinking and capable generations of South Africans.
This plan provides for monitoring and accountability, which are vital to educational reform. But in order to fix our education system, this administration is going to need political courage.
To understand why, we need to look at how this department operates and what needs to be changed. How responsive is our education system to the needs of schools and the needs of pupils?
Let's look at the examples of some Port Elizabeth schools I visited recently. On the one hand there was Grey High School, a magnificent institution with extensive buildings and impeccably maintained grounds and facilities; a historic school producing superior results, supported by fees in the high school of some R21 000 per year. They have a payment rate on those fees of around 90%. It is, rightly, a quintile five school - the category designated as having the wealthiest parents and thus being given the least money by the state. It functions with very little assistance from the state and needs very little.
Across town, in the northern areas, is a school called Helenvale Primary. It has suffered so much crime in the past few years that the windows of the classrooms and offices have both burglar bars and mesh. The result is dim interiors - on cloudy days it is difficult to see. And there are no lights to turn on, because the electricity wiring has been stolen and not been replaced. The fees here are just R100 per child per year. There is only a 20% payment rate. That is not surprising because the community in which this school is located is very poor with high unemployment.
What is surprising is that this school is also designated a quintile five school. The department is treating these kids just like the kids who attend Grey High School. They are poor and should be getting more help. They are not getting help. Their school is obtaining very little assistance from government to buy textbooks, pay electricity bills, hire security and carry out repairs.
How does that school survive? How do they survive when their budget means that they cannot even buy all the textbooks they need?
Two things have happened. Firstly, the community has pulled together to provide security for the school and, secondly, the heroic efforts of the principal and teachers have secured private sector help. Companies have contributed money because they care about what the education department is being paid to care for - the future of our kids and that of our country - but seem not to. And Helenvale Primary is not the only school in that situation.
Not far away is Booysens Park, also a quintile-five school, where eight classrooms were damaged by fire three years ago. They are still not fixed. The upstairs classrooms are unusable. Rain seeps into the walls of the lower classrooms where the school has to conduct classes. If you stand and push against the walls, they give in.
What kind of a system is it where the state cannot distinguish between these two levels of schools? Is it in any way responsive? Is it in any way benefiting the pupils of the poorer schools? What kind of officials are sitting in that district office or in that provincial administration, unaware of the situation of Helenvale Primary? Do they care? Why are they not fighting to get the schools in their district redesignated? Is the bureaucracy so stifling that they cannot do anything about it? This lack of responsiveness by the department's officials is seen elsewhere.
Last year in Parliament, when the Minister was speaking about the importance of not disrupting class time, she said, and I quote, "In-service training will however not, under any circumstance, be allowed to disrupt teaching and learning." That's a fine statement; it's a pity the education bureaucracy did not listen.
I'm holding here in my hands a circular from the Umlazi District. It is Circular No 1 of 2010. It sets out workshops for subject advisors for which they are expected to report on schooldays from 8:00 in the morning. In this circular alone, which specified the workshops for January and February, there are 172 separate workshops. For 172 days, at least, one teacher from every school would be ordered out of their classrooms by district officials in the name of improving teaching. Perhaps these workshops have some value, but what about the classes that were without teachers for each of these 172 workshops?
Did these go ahead? Why was this allowed to happen in direct contravention of what the Minister has said? What will the Minister do about this? At the very least, the Minister should have made sure that it does not happen again. But more than that, those district officials who called teachers away from their classrooms to these workshops need to be held accountable.
I believe this lack of capacity, discipline and care extends to districts across the country, but why? I suggest the answer lies in who is appointed to lead districts. How can the local district not take up the cause of schools placed in the wrong quintile? How can a district official act in flagrant disregard of a policy spelled out in this Parliament?
A clue may come from the Fort Beaufort District in the Eastern Cape, where the head of the district was chased out by unions last year. Teachers in that district said a union official wanted the job for him or herself and enlisted the help of union members to literally chase the head of district away. The replacement was due to arrive in Fort Beaufort last week. Once again, this person was not approved of by the unions. As a result, Sadtu and Nehawu members did not turn up for school; they rather went to the district office, ready to give the new head of district a hot reception. As it happened, the replacement thought it wise not to come.
In this case, as in Gauteng, last year, the unions believed they should decide who gets jobs in the department. Does the Minister really think she can run a system like this? Does the Minister really think we can have a working system where teachers leave school at 10:00, as they have done in the past two weeks in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, to go to union meetings? The Minister cannot let this continue to happen without sanction.
At the same time Sadtu wants to become the only union recognised by the department - the one union, which time and again shows that it is utterly irresponsible about teaching. It strikes at the drop of a hat so that it can stop reform and protect the worst teachers in the system from the consequences of their failures. This union needs to be brought to heel.
We know this government owes a political debt to Sadtu and is thus reluctant to act against it. If it does not, education will not recover and future generations of our people will not be able to compete and will not be empowered to climb out of poverty.
This government needs political courage to act against Sadtu. If it does not, it will betray not just this generation of school goers but the future of our country.