Hon Deputy Chairperson, hon members, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and compatriots, the ANC-led government was re-elected in 2004 on a mandate to build a people's contract to fight poverty and create work. This remains our mandate in 2009 and beyond, and the education sector has a critical role to play to ensure that our youth acquire the skills, the knowledge, the values and the attitudes needed to develop their own potential and assist in placing our country on a sustainable and shared growth path.
Quality education for every one of our learners will only be realised if government continues to direct resources, whether human, financial or physical, in a manner that creates genuine equity and redress. Our teachers, parents and learners should place teaching and learning at the centre of their lives; we cannot do without these pillars.
Working together within these pillars of education, including the school governing bodies and other stakeholders, will allow us to attain our vision which informs our education policies, based on the ANC's policy of people's education for people's power. This has been emphasised in the January 8 statement and also in the state of the nation address by the President, when he spoke about non-negotiables.
This says to us that we have to monitor the implementation of these policies. We are one, that is why the ANC has resolved that we should elevate education from being just a departmental issue to a societal issue. Hence: Working together we can do more.
The South African government has committed itself to ensuring the eradication of situations where learners have to study under a tree or in mud buildings, or under any dangerous conditions. Education is central to giving impetus to the forces of production and is essential for progress. It is not a cost, but an investment.
Today I wish to ask the permission of the youth league to wear the cap of the youth league and take me as a youth leaguer in good standing. I say this, coming from Mpumalanga. I wish to call for a speedy processing of the establishment of a university in Mpumalanga.
Kubanga amahloni ngempela lokhu phakathi kwazo zonke izifundazwe ukuthi iMpumalanga ayinayo inyuvesi. [It is really a shame that amongst all the provinces Mpumalanga does not have a university.]
Realising these goals will reduce the exodus of learners from our poor rural areas to the urban areas, costing our parents a lot of money. At the very least, all our schools must have access roads, sanitation facilities, clean drinking water and other important infrastructure. This must be done in conjunction with government's Expanded Public Works Programme. The Expanded Public Works Programme must prioritise the wiping out of infrastructure backlogs at our schools. Let us work together to ensure that this is monitored and implemented.
We should call for the co-operation of the Department of Health and other antipoverty measures that should be implemented at schools.
As a government we remain committed to assisting young people to acquire skills that are relevant to the needs of the economy. Thus we are saying that the burden of education costs must be removed from poor families. It has emerged from the Youth Parliament's report that there are problems with access to bursaries for tertiary education institutions, further education and training colleges and so forth. Therefore these services and the transformation of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme become important and relevant.
To increase graduate output in areas of skills shortages we need to increase measures to streamline sector education and training authorities and other institutions to address existing and forecasted skills shortages. We also need to revive the role of state-owned enterprises in skills development and training.
The President of the country, in his state of the nation address, stressed the need to intensify the work under Jipsa as a key skills demand.
Central to this, quality initiatives will have to be improved, such as access to early childhood development. The government aims to increase the number of five-year-olds, that is the Grade Rs, in publicly funded schools by increasing their number from 487 525 to 700 000, thereby benefiting more children, and to sustain early childhood education. The ANC-led government will also train tutors for those learners in early childhood centres.
Poverty eradication strategies are an essential component. To improve our schooling, an important initiative in this respect has been the introduction of the school nutrition programme, aiming to provide daily meals for six million learners in approximately 18 000 primary schools. The ANC-led government intends to make sure that this programme extends to deserving learners in high schools. [Interjections.]
I do not want to respond to that. We promise and we implement - that is why we are here.
The Polokwane conference decided that no-fee schooling should be expanded from 40% to 60% of students and that we should progressively introduce free education for the poor. This means that this year 60%, or most, of the schools in South Africa are no-fee schools. This is the initiative of the ANC-led government.
We have a clause in the Freedom Charter, which was crafted by the Congress of the People in 1955, which says that education shall be free, compulsory, and equal for all children, and we are going to make sure that that happens - 60% and improving.
While we acknowledge the rise in enrolment of learners in primary schools, we are also disturbed by the high drop-out rate of young learners.
Children with disabilities constitute a significant proportion of learners not in schools. Very few special schools provide for education beyond Grade 9. This says to us as the Fourth Parliament that we need to ascertain what progress has been made in inclusive education programmes, and intensify it. We have White Paper 6. Let us change it from being a White Paper. Education remains the most significant arena for youth development and emancipation. This calls for a review of the proposed model for mainstreaming disability issues within the core business of Parliament.
While we have an aggressive approach to educator training and the initiatives for a world-class education sector which produces skills to generate economic growth and create an economy for the 21st century, we should also promote the status of teachers, ensuring the employment of adequate numbers and improving their remuneration as an important part of our drive to ensure that quality teaching becomes the norm rather than the exception.
We need to improve performance in mathematics, science, technology and language development. We have to look at the programmes that will assist educators in terms of content to assist our young people. We need to emphasise the roles of departmental transformation units within our regions and provinces.
There is a subject called life orientation. This subject is not taken seriously. I call for the prioritisation of this subject, because it provides career guidance, leadership development and socioeconomic awareness programmes for young people. This subject is able to do that.
In conclusion, today's curriculum requires that parents should help learners at home. As a result, the issue of illiteracy among our adults becomes a problem. So, we need to make sure that the Kha Ri Gude programmes are taken forward, and illiteracy is eradicated by 2014. That is what we aimed at and that is what our manifesto promised.
As I conclude, I will quote the President, who said in his state of the nation address:
For as long as there are children who do not have the means nor the opportunity to receive a decent education ... we shall not rest, and we dare not falter, in our drive to eradicate poverty.
Thank you. [Applause.]