Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr President, Deputy President and colleagues:
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 a mine, that the child of farmworkers can become president of a great nation.
These are the words of Nelson Mandela. When the great Nelson Mandela walked through the gates of Victor Verster Prison 20 years ago, he was confronted by a racially fractured education system constructed on the Verwoerdian notion of subservience and baasskap [domination], and steeped in the discriminatory practices of racism and sexism.
Lever and Krafchik, in an article entitled Spending on Socio-Economic Services, which was published in 1988, clearly captured the challenges that the system faced by stating, and I quote:
It has been estimated that prior to 1994, around 64% of the black population was functionally illiterate. Numeracy and technical skills were widely lacking. The majority of black teachers who comprise the bulk of the nation's teaching corps were underqualified. The school system for Africans was in disarray and disorder, and most African pupils failed to complete more than eight years in a schooling system which was, anyway, highly ineffective.
The new government inherited a ramshackle system of partially desegregated schooling that continued to be characterized by great racial inequalities in per capita expenditure from public funds. Resource constraints, both physical and human, made the effective implementation of the curriculum at most black schools highly problematic.
The postapartheid ANC government has done remarkably well in dismantling the apartheid edifice in education, as well as extending formal access to learners in the compulsory education phase with nearly universal enrolment. The period after 1994 was characterised by dramatic strides in the equalisation of education expenditure.
Today, more children are staying at school until matric. It is also estimated that about 85% of our learner population is now receiving at least 12 years of education, either in schools or colleges.
In addition, millions of learners are exempt from paying school fees. Also, the national nutrition programme provides for nutrition at approximately 19 000 schools, which translates into 6 265 065 primary school learners and about 1 million secondary school learners benefiting from the programme. The scheme has been expanded to include learners from the poorest quintiles in high school and we have already seen evidence of improved attendance as a result of this intervention.
Yet we continue to be confronted by the stark realities of some 40% of our schools being overcrowded and hundreds of schools being without water, sanitation and electricity and schools with inadequate infrastructure or which are unsafe. In recent months we have witnessed the effects of tornados, storms and inclement weather, which destroyed schools in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, North West and Limpopo. This is a matter that must be resolved swiftly as our learners cannot be exposed to the elements.
To compound the problem, there have been instances of vandalism and theft of school property. We cannot allow this to happen to our schools that are our islands of hope. We must mobilise our communities to take ownership of our schools, and to act as the custodians and protectors of our institutions of learning.
Despite significant advances, the primary measure of quality in education, ie learner achievement, has continued to lag behind. There are a number of reasons for the continued underperformance of the South African schooling system. These include poor management of schools by principals; inadequate teaching; lack of content knowledge among teachers; lack of support to schools by district and provincial offices; a heavy administrative burden on teachers; limited time on task; and weak acquisition of foundational skills by learners.
There is a growing international consensus that achieving quality in an education system will require a clear and unrelenting focus on three main components of the system. Mr Masutha spoke about the three Es; we shall talk about three Ts, ie teachers, text and time.
To this I may add technology. Nic Taylor has put it very aptly, and I quote:
Three features of our school system combine to undermine effective teaching and learning: poor time management, insufficient attention to text, and very low levels of teacher subject knowledge. The accumulating evidence indicates that with respect to these three factors, our teachers and schools are significantly worse off than those of our much poorer neighbours in the region.
The Coleman Report of the 1960s in the United States found that -
... the in-school factor that was found to have the most significant effect on achievement for all students was good teachers.
The quality of teachers becomes a yardstick for the quality of an education system. But this is well-trodden territory. Our partners in the unions will be quick to point out that this kind of analysis could indeed easily slip into blaming teachers for the educational woes of our country.
The simple point we are making though - supported by a range of commentators - is that well-qualified and competent teachers who arrive on time, are of sober mind and body, are well-prepared for their lessons and teach for the duration of the school day, are the most critical element in the improvement of the educational system; not only in South Africa, but indeed across the world.
The best investment that any country can make in its efforts to improve the quality of its education system occurs, principally, in the preschool sector. It is here where the foundational skills in literacy and numeracy are established. These skills prepare children for primary schooling.
The positive effects of early education for later educational success and career progress are now universally acknowledged. Government's vision for early childhood development is that it will serve as the bedrock for the holistic development of the child.
It has been scientifically and empirically established that the most critical and significant cognitive development of a child occurs from birth to four years. This is when a child also develops fine motor skills and acquires attitudes which are either positive or negative. The role of parents in this important phase cannot be ignored. To this end, the Department of Basic Education and the Department of Social Development are working closely together to ensure that practitioners and caregivers are able to contribute meaningfully and purposefully towards the full development of the child.
As the President correctly indicated, literacy and early childhood development initiatives will go a long way toward creating employment opportunities. But, more importantly, these initiatives will also go a long way toward developing skills in the critical areas of education, which we desperately need for social transformation.
For example, the Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign employs 40 000 practitioners who have successfully eradicated illiteracy among just under a million adults in the past two years. Now that is, indeed, delivery. Fortunately, literate parents or grandparents are able to provide support to infants and children as they grow up. Thus, the initiatives are not only economic in nature, but have a social dimension that benefits the recipients as well as a generation of current and future learners.
Speaking about delivery, government has embarked on a massive drive to expand Grade R provision. In 2003 there were approximately 320 000 learners in Grade R classrooms in public and independent schools, but by 2008 this number had increased to 620 000.
We obviously recognise that the consequences of this are additional classrooms, practitioners and costs. We estimate that an additional number of around 200 000 learners are attending community-based sites.
In January 2010, we distributed resource packs to all primary schools - Dr Mulder, in all languages - as part of the Foundations for Learning Campaign. These packs are based on the National Curriculum Statement for Grade R and contain posters, storybooks, lesson plans for teachers, a teacher's guide with an assessment framework and a workbook for learners.
The packs have been very well received by teachers and schools and we are optimistic that they will make a huge contribution to improving learning and teaching in the Grade R classrooms.
The department remains committed to the provision of high-quality learning and teaching support materials to schools and teachers in 2010 and beyond. The department is proceeding with the development of workbooks for learners from Grades 1 to 6 and Minister Motshekga will make an announcement in this regard during her budget speech next month.
Minister Motshekga initiated a process last year to strengthen the implementation of the school curriculum. She announced measures, which were implemented from the beginning of this year, that aim to relieve teachers of an unnecessarily heavy administrative burden in order to allow more time for learning and teaching in the classroom.
This process of strengthening the implementation of the curriculum will continue this year and we will take the necessary steps to ensure that all our learners benefit from what is a sophisticated, high-skill and modern curriculum statement.
We have also instituted a committee of curriculum experts to make recommendations on the reduction of the number of learning areas in the intermediate phase. It is envisaged that these recommendations will be implemented in January 2011 and we invite the opposition to monitor our performance in this regard.
We have taken the necessary steps to ensure that all Grade 3, 6 and 9 learners will write literacy and numeracy tests in 2010 that will be independently moderated. Government is committed to improving the average pass rate from the current 35% to 60% by 2014. Again we invite you to monitor and evaluate our performance in this regard. These tests will be internationally benchmarked and quality-assured. Our 500 Dinaledi schools continue to demonstrate that our learners can perform well above the national average with the necessary focus and support.
I want you to listen very carefully to this: In three years we were able to more than double the passes in mathematics, that is from 27 000 to more than 63 000. In 2009, 52 779 learners passed Mathematics at 50% and above. Out of this number, 12 213 - that is 23,7% of learners - came from Dinaledi schools, which are located in rural and township areas that are historically disadvantaged. They constitute only 9% of the 6 000 schools.
These interventions will provide every learner with a textbook and a calculator. It will also ensure that we improve on the content knowledge of the teachers, that there is additional tuition provided and that additional learner support materials are provided to the learners.
We congratulate Mbilwi Secondary School in rural Limpopo, one of our Dinaledi schools, which managed to obtain a 99% pass rate in both mathematics and physical science in 2009. [Applause.] Mbilwi is interesting because it is a rural school in a rural area and has produced more than 100 matric passes consistently over the past three years. The former Minister of Education would in fact verify that; and they were the recipients of an award.
The year before last, they had more than 45 distinctions in mathematics and science and no fewer than 15 of the learners obtained 100% in mathematics and science; so changes can be brought about if we make a change.
We shall develop a basic education plan that will form the basis of our efforts in basic education to address the weaknesses in the education system. This plan will seek to improve co-ordination in the system by spelling out clearly the lines of accountability.
It will commit provinces and provincial education departments to clear, agreed outcomes and will ensure that everyone in the system is accountable for the attainment of these outcomes. It will be informed by the ANC's ten- point plan.
We also need to operationalise the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit to ensure that we evaluate all parts of the system in order to lay bare the constraints that are preventing the achievement of quality in education. This includes teacher competence.
The visit by officials of the Department of Basic Education to the 27 000 schools must be understood in this context. This will form a diagnostic analysis of the functionality of each school, from management to classroom practice, resource provision, overcrowding, leadership and management, discipline and infrastructure. The South African Schools Act directs each principal to provide the head of department with a School Performance Management Plan.
Education is the apex priority of this administration. We shall work co- operatively with all our stakeholders, especially our teacher unions. We certainly invite our public representatives to join us in the pledge that the President has referred to.
The Department of Education is ready to openly and honestly tackle the many challenges we continue to confront in education. We call on all South Africans to join hands with us to ensure that our education system is turned around.
Perhaps it is important for me to wish the 92 000 Grade 12 learners who are writing their supplementary examinations the best of luck. I would like to conclude with a quote from the speech of Mahatma Gandhi, another icon, given that the President has alluded to the fact that we are celebrating 150 years of the arrival of Indians. He said the following:
There will have to be rigid and iron discipline before we achieve anything great and enduring, and that discipline will not come by mere academic argument and appeal to reason and logic. Discipline is learnt in the school of adversity.
In conclusion, may we convey our sincere sympathy to the Ramorola and Motshekga families on the untimely passing away of Jabulani. This explains the absence of the hon Minister of Basic Education. I thank you. [Applause.]
Business suspended at 12:59 and resumed at 14:01.
Afternoon Sitting