Chairperson, in closing the debate I would like to recognise the presence of my family, my sister and her partner, my children and all invited guests who are here. I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the members of the executive council for education who have assisted in defining this agenda, Deputy Minister Surty for his strong and capable support at all times and my colleague, Comrade Nzimande. Many thanks also to the director-general and his senior officials who have the responsibility of ensuring that this agenda is implemented efficiently. I would also like to make special mention of the Chief Financial Officer, Mr Philip Benad, who retires today after many years of service to government and who has delivered clean audits over an extended period. [Applause.]
I pay tribute to all the good teachers and principals out there represented by Mr Mathopa, whom I referred to earlier - a principal who turned a 0% performance school into a 100% performance school. [Applause.] He is one of the few principals whose own children attended a school serving the poor, expressing confidence in his own work.
The beauty of this debate is that education transcends political and ideological divides; therefore, we will agree with most of the issues and points that have been raised by different members of the opposition and also of the ANC. We agree with the speakers on most of the points raised and we will definitely come out much clearer in our strategic plan, which we request you to read and also comment on.
On the issue of quality education - hence our theme today of working together to achieve quality education for all, and I think we all agree - our children from poor backgrounds and rural townships all deserve access to quality education sooner rather than later. We also agree about challenges facing our rural schools and systematic problems in the system and again we are committed to confronting them. Again, I would like to emphasise the point of why the Ministry was divided - to make sure that between ourselves and Higher Education and Training we focus our attention on all the issues our committees have raised regarding education.
There have also been some comments on the curriculum, hence we have set up a committee to make sure that indeed we are committed to attend to real and perceptual problems that have been raised regarding the curriculum. We are setting up a process from this month. I have given them four months and we are inviting members of the public to comment to make sure that, come 2010, we have already addressed some of the major issues that people have raised.
A great thing to remember about the curriculum is that it is not an event, it's an ongoing process, and indeed we will set up mechanisms to make sure that there is continuous support and research around the curriculum at all times to make sure that it does indeed respond to the needs. I want to reiterate the point and assure members of the House that we will be addressing most of the issues that have been raised regarding the curriculum, because it is our core business. If you are in the business of making BMWs, you have to constantly do research to make sure that indeed your product can stand the test of time and the changes that confront it.
Education for children with special needs has again been raised, and again we are committing ourselves to say, yes, indeed, we have once again prioritised that in our strategic plan and we have set up a process to see what we have to do to make sure that indeed our policy addresses the plans that are there. I have already spoken to members of the department to say that if they have a policy that does not address the challenges affecting children with disabilities, it is not worth the paper it is written on. The whole question about sign language and children from poor households not accessing education is a challenge we as a department have to develop plans for and confront with all the necessary dedication and commitment we can.
I would like to say the following, before taking my seat again. Firstly, regarding the capping of fees, I think, as much as we agree that we have to be very careful about this matter so that you don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg, it is also quite irresponsible to allow, by default, state assets like schools to be privatised by high fees so that they exclude children of poorer parents who cannot afford to pay the fees. This is an open issue, but we are committed to saying that we are not going to allow public schools to charge R50 000, because that will, in a way, really be like stealing state assets by privatising them and keeping them for the rich only. I think this is an issue that we have to discuss.
Secondly, on the question of charging fees, I am not sure why we should deny parents who are willing to give their children the best gift they can, which is education, by saying they can't pay, because it is free education. There should be a spirit of making sure that there is cross-subsidisation in the system.
Without wasting any more time, I would again like to sincerely thank the members for indicating that you do commit yourselves to working closely with us so that we can do all we can to make sure that we increase access to quality education for all our children from rural, poor and township schools. I thank you. [Applause.]