Chairperson, no budget can be appropriate unless it is contextually valid. A contextually valid budget tries as far as possible to respond to the general needs of society. It is absolutely astonishing to find two glaring, inexplicable and unforgivable omissions in the policy formulation for education.
Firstly, there is no policy to deal with the enormous vocabulary deficit within the larger school-going population. Learners who have reached Grade 12 with less than 20 000 to 30 000 words will read with frustration, fail to comprehend adequately and struggle to understand idiomatic and figurative language.
The second omission is the lack of availability of the Worldwide Web; it not being provided in every classroom. Who in the world can do without the Worldwide Web? This question should also be answered. It is obvious why Cope has contended through testing times that a society has not succeeded if the state only prepares children for academic success, but does not develop their values and readiness for responsible citizenship.
The House will definitely agree with Cope that education is absolutely central to poverty reduction and that it plays a key role in delivering sustainable change, opportunity and hope for all children. It is worth noting that children from poor households, rural areas, slums and other disadvantaged groups face major obstacles in accessing good quality education. Cope will strongly support any attempt at investing both human and financial resources in early childhood education and education in general, meaning basic and higher education.
The House will further agree and note that the notion of using matric results as a yardstick for good performance is worrisome. According to the SA Institute of Race Relations, only 10% of learners in the South African school system achieve results good enough for them to enter university.
If we are really serious about quality education, we must revisit our assessment criteria used to allow learners to progress from one grade to the next. Currently, in order to pass matric exams a learner only needs to have achieved 40% or above in three subjects, and 30% or higher in another three. However, in order to gain university entrance a learner needs to have achieved 50% or above in at least four subjects, and not less than 50% in two other subjects. These low assessment criteria play a significant role in dropout and unemployment rates, because most of the matric learners are half-baked.
As a result, Cope believes that our country will not become a successful industrialised economy if the Education department continues to produce inadequate results. In rolling out the non-negotiable mandate as captured in the state of the nation address, we should encourage members of the House to adopt schools, with a view to ensuring compliance, and to further mobilise communities to do the same.
Cope rallies behind the attempts at prioritising the establishment of a youth cadet service, learnerships and internships to get all school-leavers to support our communities and learn the necessary skills to find decent work.
Despite important progress, the majority of teachers are frustrated by the current trend in the curriculum to fast-track learners to exit Grade 12. It is further noted that this situation is causing a problem in various high schools. Is this a cost-containment measure or a deliberate attempt to throw poor children out of school? At this point we need to stop the abuse and answer this question. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. [Applause.]