Chairperson, I start by thanking the hon Minister of Higher Education and Training, hon Blade Nzimande. I don't know if I should say "Sharp Blade" Nzimande! Welcome, Minister.
I also want to welcome the hon Minister of Basic Education, hon Motshekga. Thank you for agreeing to come and participate in this debate in the NCOP. Your co-operation is highly regarded by the NCOP. Thank you also to all the MECs who have been able to come here today to participate in this important debate.
We thought it would be important to start our debates on policy issues in the NCOP this year by looking at education because of its importance, and we will continue and consider other areas that we have identified as our priority areas of oversight.
When the President of this country addressed this House last year, he stated that our education was not delivering the results that South Africans needed to overcome the ravages of apartheid. He said that a large slice of the population lacked the skills they needed to find employment, leaving them jobless for years and years. He further stated:
Though it absorbs a significant amount of our budget, our education system does not produce the outcomes we require.
A couple of months ago the President addressed the matric results that were released, and they were unsatisfactory by far. An in-depth analysis of these results shows a deep-rooted challenge in our education system as a whole.
Let me just go quickly to the statistics. In 1998 more than 1,5 million children across the country started Grade 1. Since then, about 1 million of those children fell by the wayside. In 2009 only 551 940 of them registered for the matric class. That is a dropout rate of about 65%.
We have to ask ourselves the question: Where are those learners today? What are they doing where they are currently? That is a question that I want to put directly to all of us as Members of Parliament as well: What are we doing to be involved in that?
Also, hon members, in terms of the SA Schools Act of 1996, it is also the responsibility of the parents to make sure that those children go to school and are taught. I do not want to read the Act; I am sure everybody knows that the Act says we have a responsibility as parents to make sure that our children pass Grade 9 at least. It is our responsibility to do so. This is also in the Bill of Rights, which is entrenched in the Constitution.
There is absolutely no reason today for parents or anybody to allow their children to not go to school and hide behind the argument of poverty. The Minister and the Department of Basic Education have made it very clear that no school should refuse to admit a child to school if he or she does not have the money to pay for school fees.
That is the reason for the department actually taking steps to make quite a number of schools no-fee schools today. The quintile system itself has played a major role in addressing that and, Minister, we want to thank you that the number of these schools where our children are not paying school fees has now increased and that they can go to school and receive an education. Thank you for that, because it was a very big problem in the past. Although there are challenges regarding the classification of some schools into different quintiles, the quintile system is still one of the best ways of actually helping poor children attain a basic education.
Let us quickly look at the matric results. The 2009 matric results were announced earlier this year. Only 334 609 of the 551 940 who wrote passed matric. That is 60,6%. Of these, just over 100 000 qualified for university entrance. In Mpumalanga, for example, the pass rate was 50%, and in the Eastern Cape 51%. Simply put, this means that one in every two matriculants in these provinces is facing an uncertain future.
Figures released by the Department of Basic Education show that 18 schools got a 0% matric pass rate. Half of them - i.e. nine - are found in Limpopo, four in KwaZulu-Natal, three in the Eastern Cape, one in the North West and one in Gauteng. Do you want to tell me that those children are all stupid in those schools and that not even one child can pass? There must be something wrong. I don't believe that all those children cannot pass and that there was a pass rate of zero in those particular schools. There is something wrong and all of us need to pay attention to that.
I want to suggest right now that all Members of Parliament who are deployed in constituencies where those schools are should adopt a school like that. Don't wait for tomorrow; let it be your school until you upgrade it and until you get the results corrected. I have done it in the past and I know it works. I monitor such a school until the results of the school shape up and then I know I have done my work. Then I can leave that school and go and do another school.
Hon members, in 2007 the pass rate was 65,2% and in 2008 it was 62,5%. These decreases started after 2004, when the pass rate was 70,7%, and it has been going down every year. If the trend is anything to go by, it means we are heading for trouble.
What are some of the challenges that exist and that all of us can address, instead of waiting for the department? One of the challenges is absenteeism at school, either of the teachers or the children themselves. We can go there and check. I did that just two weeks in my constituency, and I discovered that these problems still exist. Other challenges are bad management of schools and a lack of infrastructure at schools.
In interacting with my constituency, I further found that there was a lack of discipline among some of the teachers - not all of them. Remember that we have some teachers who are very good, but some of them still lack discipline at school, and some learners also have a lack of discipline, either leaving early or arriving late, whatever the case may be.
There is also poor management of school transport. They have complained to those of us who have visited schools that in some areas they don't have school transport, or the school transport brings them to school late and fetches them early, whatever the case may be. Those are simply questions of logistics can be addressed by management at that particular school.
Then there is the issue of a lack of qualified teachers, especially for subjects such as mathematics and science. Minister, when I visited two high schools in the Modimolle area in Limpopo, where I am deployed, I asked both of the principals of those schools one simple question: What made your results drop in 2009? Let us leave other years, just tell me what made your results drop in 2009.
Both of them said to me that the children had failed in large numbers in mathematics, physical science and accounting. I asked them why they had failed. The answer I got from both these principals was that the papers were too hard. The standards set in the papers were too high. That is what I got from their mouths. Now, I didn't see the papers, and I don't know what they looked like, but what I want to raise is that it is common knowledge - you get some information - that some of the teachers, when they teach accounting, deliberately avoid bookkeeping and management accounting. When they teach mathematics, they avoid, for example, looking at the question of trigonometry, which is very important in teaching mathematics.
Hon Chairperson, other speakers will expand on what I have said, because I don't have much time. But let me also say that we should also ask ourselves the following questions as we discuss this subject: How many children of disadvantaged parents can read, count and write properly when they go to school, as opposed to the children from advantaged families? How many township and rural schools are crippled by the lack of resources that are needed to ensure that teaching continues uninterrupted? How many schools in poor areas are functioning and have libraries and laboratories? These are some of the questions that we should ask.
Once more, the government has committed itself to ensuring access to quality education as one of the strategic priorities of this term of Parliament, with a focus on the delivery of quality outcomes. As the President stated, among other things, during the state of the nation address in 2009, particular attention would be paid to learner outcomes, early childhood development, improving school management and supporting and developing a higher quality of teaching as a profession. Achieving this, however, depends upon dealing with basics first.
These are what the President calls the non-negotiables, that is, teachers should be in school, in class, on time and teaching for seven hours every day. There should be no neglect of duty, there should be no abuse of learners and learners must be in class learning. These are non-negotiables and very, very important.
Coming to higher education, I want to thank hon Minister Blade Nzimande. I have had a discussion with him - I don't want to repeat a lot in the debate - particularly in terms of the students who need to be registered at or admitted to tertiary institutions. I am referring to the question of students who are perhaps doing their third or final year and hardly have the money to complete their degrees. They have to break off their studies, go and work and come back and finish their degrees. There are still these problems at tertiary institutions.
There is a point system for admitting students to university. I am not too sure whether it is standard, or whether each university has its own point system. The University of Cape Town, for example, might have its own system, and UWC might have its own system, so too Free State, Wits, and the University of Pretoria. Which criteria are being used, actually, in dealing with these point systems?
The most important thing is that we must make sure that the children who pass well in matric gain access to these tertiary institutions. Those point systems must not be used to prevent our children from entering institutions of higher learning and to favour other people getting into the institutions of higher learning. I would want to request the Minister today to look into that. I have actually seen that the Minister has begun that type of discussion. I think this morning you came out very well. I do not know if you pre-empted the debate this afternoon, Minister, but I was watching you on television and this question came up again, and you responded to it very well. I want to thank you very much.
Thank you, hon members. Those are my inputs for the debate. [Applause.]