Chairperson, you will excuse me for not observing protocol and for using my time to recognise the fact that today is a very special day for one of the senior members of the department, Mr Philip Benade, the Chief Financial Officer, CFO. It's his last day at work today. He is going on retirement after an illustrious career. And I am sure, on behalf of all of us here today, I want to extend my sincere appreciation for the wonderful service he has given to this country over a long period of time. [Applause.]
He has assured me that he has put systems in place to ensure that the department continues to receive an unqualified audit. I want to take this opportunity to say to him that if this ever changes during my term as the portfolio committee chair, I have it on good authority - and I've checked - that I have the power to pull him out of retirement immediately to sort out whatever happens. But, thank you very much and best wishes to you and your family. [Applause.]
It being an election year, the programme of Parliament during this budget cycle has to be compressed and rushed. Therefore, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training, as well as members of both committees for their co- operation and support during this rather frenzied time.
In the brief time that I have assumed this portfolio, I can relate to what the Minister asserted in her speech just now. Education has layers of challenges, many of them stemming from our past and many of them pertaining to our collective future.
Indeed, it is correct to say that no other field of endeavour in government is so vitally connected to the destiny of this country as the department headed by the two Ministers here today.
In recognition of the fact that the success of a nation is inalienably linked to the success of its education system, the ANC fought this election campaign on the basis that education will be a priority of this government.
We must seriously ask ourselves what it means to make education a priority. There must be an implication as to how all of us here - politicians and officials alike - approach our work. To make a matter a national priority must mean that we don't continue in the usual way. It must mean that certain extraordinary ways must be found to deliver on our promises.
It must necessarily mean that we hone in on what we hope to achieve and single-mindedly work towards the attainment of very clear goals. Of course, one such extraordinary measure has been to develop dedicated areas of focus for both basic and higher education. And by doing this government said that both these matters require extraordinary effort and creativity to afford our future generations the best opportunity to succeed as citizens of the 21st century.
But, some other things also need to change. Firstly, the governance of the system as a whole requires a closer look. Education is indeed a concurrent power and, as such, the budget that is eventually realised at the level of each province is firmly within the discretion of the provincial treasury.
The portion of the budget dedicated to provinces for education by National Treasury is often not appropriated to education in the province despite prior discussions held between all relevant stakeholders. This is because of competing interests in the provincial sphere.
If, as the ANC has committed itself during the elections, we are to make progress in building schools, developing our teachers and ensuring that our learners receive quality education, we must seek to align this national budget process to reflect eventual outcomes in the provinces.
But this is not enough; we must also unpack what it means, for instance, when we talk about a quality education. An independent study which was conducted by the HSRC and the University of Cape Town recently concluded that, like many other countries in the world, we are facing a problem with literacy, particularly at Grade 4 level.
It should not be left to outside bodies to tell us what is going on in our schools. We should be the first to pick up on these matters and devise solutions to fit what is empirically supported by evidence.
We should know today how many learners are likely to write the matric exam in the year 2020 and we must start planning for that occurrence. We should know on average how many times learners repeat a grade in our schools. We should know which teachers have high incidences of students who fail in their classes so that appropriate and timely interventions are made.
More and more, government is looking to making gains in areas that are supported by empirical data and analysis thereof. With the new National Planning Commission and Performance Monitoring and Evaluation and Administration Ministries, governance is going to depend on accurate information being acquired by individual Ministries.
While education is indeed a concurrent power, we must give due credence to Chapter 3 of the Constitution and in a co-operative manner ensure that there is a single system of data gathering and sound analysis that is specific to every geographical location in the country. There must be a uniform system that feeds into the national domain from each province from which government can extrapolate trends and foresee crises wherever they occur.
One must acknowledge, as the Minister has, that there have been some achievements. Currently there is a specific programme entitled Systems Planning in the department and already in 2007 some stats have been made public. These require detailed analysis.
For example, one of the things that is apparent from this analysis is that as of 2007 there were 6 million-odd learners in 15 000 primary schools and there were 191 199 primary school teachers. At the same time, there were about 6 000 secondary schools, 128 000 high school educators and 3,8 million high school learners.
At a glance, these figures should be very worrying to us because it is clear that in the next four years we are going to have a serious shortage of high schools and of high school teachers, unless of course we have a massive dropout rate which is not something that we are planning for. Of course, these stats need to be extrapolated for where, geographically speaking, these problems are projected to occur.
Overcrowding and high teacher-to-learner ratios, as you said, Minister, are crucial to addressing this matter of a quality education. If we were, in this term, to lay detailed plans to rid ourselves of this phenomenon, the Ministry of Basic Education would have dealt a significant blow to this great legacy of apartheid education.
All of this, I must hasten to add, is not to say that there have not been significant achievements previously. As the Minister indicated, we have for the first time in the history of this country the highest enrolments in schools. This is a tremendous achievement.
For example, in 1996, 49% of six-year-olds were at school. By 2007 this had increased to 91%. This is not an unremarkable achievement. And I want to say that I realise that as much credit goes to government as it does to our teachers, most of whom are actually wonderful and treasured assets to the country.
Many of them work under enormously trying conditions. They have to be teachers, social workers and parents. Every day many dedicated South Africans wake up, go to school on time and teach to the best of their ability. More and more, we should recognise their efforts and be geared as government to support them in their singularly important task. After all, they are the people who are moulding our nation.
I wish to take this opportunity this afternoon to dedicate this input to the memory of two teachers and freedom fighters, whose lives were brought to a tragic end during the darkest days of our struggle and to whom this country owes an enormous debt, the late Matthew Goniwe and the late Ahmed Timol. I thank you for your attention. [Applause.]