Modulasetulo, Letona la lefapha, Maloko a Palamente a a leng fa ... [Chairperson, Minister of the department, Members of Parliament present ...] on 29 March 1996 Nelson Mandela said, and I quote:
On its establishment, South Africa's first democratic government faced daunting challenges in the education sector. The lack of proper educational facilities and resources, along with apartheid's devastating effect on our social fabric had created a crisis in education and training of immense proportions. The problem required a new multifaceted approach to co-ordinate the efforts of different sectors of society, within an overall framework for fundamental change.
The inequality of education funding during the apartheid era was shocking. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's 2009 report indicates that certain whites-only schools received 20 times more per learner than the poorest black schools for personnel and nonpersonnel as well as for capital needs.
It is against this background that the ANC firmly supports the budget in the knowledge that it seeks to redress the glaring imbalances of the past and ensure a fundamental change, from early childhood development, EDC, to higher education and training.
In this regard, the expansion of the early childhood development programme should be geared towards ensuring universal access to Grade R and doubling the number of 0 to 4-year-old children by 2014, as identified in the 2009 state of the nation address.
It is commendable that the department has allocated financial resources in the 2009-10 financial year to increase the number of five-year-old learners enrolled in publicly funded Grade R classes in public primary schools and community-based early childhood development sites, from the current 839 to 1 023 by January 2010.
In addition, the findings of a study of the Grade R sector, which was conducted in 2008, should be used to give guidance on how to strengthen national, provincial and district capacity to achieve the 2010 target of universal Grade R enrolment.
However, for the success of early childhood development provisioning, it is absolutely significant for the department to pay particular attention to improving the quality of programmes offered at this level and to employ properly qualified practitioners with the appropriate skills.
All early childhood development funding must also reach the centres on time. A well-resourced and functional ECD sector is essential in improving the quality of the education system and it contributes to ensuring readiness for formal schooling.
In May 2002, a special session of the United Nations General Assembly on children committed itself to a time-bound set of specific goals for children and young people known as the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, in terms of which member states pledged to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day.
In meeting the MDGs, South Africa has introduced many strategies, one of which is the National School Nutrition Programme. In this regard, the key objectives of the National School Nutrition Programme should be fully realised. These objectives include creating access to nutritious meals for learners from the poorest communities, counteracting short-term hunger and nutrient deprivation, and ensuring enhanced learning capacity. Subsequently, a total of 6 280 489 learners in 18 279 schools were fed an adequate meal in 2008, and a total of 6 503 school food gardens were planted and sustained.
However, the reorientation of the schools nutrition programme from its historical grade level focus towards an explicit affirmation as an antipoverty measure is the greatest challenge. To achieve this will require sound policy implementation regarding the identification of the main beneficiaries.
This represents the intersection of schools funding norms and the school nutrition programme, and suggests that the future of both programmes is intertwined. Furthermore, communities need to be given a greater stake in the delivery of healthy food through sustainable school food gardens. This does not only enhance the budgetary value achieved by the delivery of the schools nutrition programme, but builds nutrition-conscious communities whose outcomes stretch far beyond the programme confines of the schools nutrition programme.
The immediate expansion of no-fee schools to 60% in the current year, as per the ANC Polokwane resolution, is significant in freeing parents from the responsibility of paying school fees, thereby contributing to poverty alleviation.
South Africa's adult population reflects the disparities of the education policies prior to democracy. This makes the role of adult basic education and training very important as a means to enable full participation in the new democracy and to deliver the improvements sought in the economic transformation of South Africa.
A history of low investment in adult basic education and training and heavy reliance on nongovernmental organisations has left a legacy of low confidence in the system to provide sustained high-quality programmes. Furthermore, strong links between training and employment, particularly through flexible qualifications pathways, provide a structure for adult learners to see progression ahead.
In this regard, South Africa's qualifications framework permits the recognition of training experienced in a wide variety of settings for conventional qualifications. I will just skip the other matters.
It is criminal for institutions of higher education to return monies designated to assist students when there is a growing outcry for assistance, because many young people from poor families face financial constraints in furthering their studies.
We are happy to announce that government assistance through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme is expected to rise at an average annual rate of 16,6% over the medium term. The increase is in line with our objective of promoting student access to higher education. An important provision in the Act was the establishment of democratically elected governing bodies.
However, it is regrettable to note that some of the school governing bodies, SGBs, are not working properly because they do not have the necessary skills and are not sure about their roles and responsibilities. This happens mostly in poorer communities where people have few resources and where many cannot read and write. I thank you. [Applause.]