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BENGU, TO THE EDUCATION WORKSHOP OF THE ANC
ALLIANCE - RANDBURG, 17 JULY 1998

Comrade Chairperson
Representatives of the ANC Regions and Head Office
Representatives of the Alliance Structures
Representatives of the policy community
Representatives of the national and provincial Ministries of Education
Comrades

I am grateful for this opportunity to address you on developments in education since the 1994 democratic elections, our current challenges, and plans for the future.

I am conscious that this is a workshop, not a formal conference or a summit. I am also very aware that there may have been some organIsational difficulties, and that the workshop is not as well prepared, nor as representative of the regions and structures, as we would have liked.

I am sure this matter will be properly analysed at the correct time. I will not dwell on it now. But, Comrade Chairperson, we must jack up our level of preparation if our sector is to make its rightful contribution to the forthcoming election campaign.

We know that Education is already a major site of contestation, and that the contestation is likely to intensify as the election approaches. It is essential that our regions and structures are well prepared to engage our opponents on our education performance and programme.

For that to occur, the national and regional leadership of the ANC and alliance structures need to engage deeply in analysis and debate, so that we are clear about the messages we must project.

We have a lot to do, and not much time to do it. Problems aside, it is good that we are making a start in this workshop.

In order to explain what has happened in education since 1994, one has to ask what the ANC has set out to achieve in government in the area of education. In order words, what did we promise the country,

If I were to try and capture in one sentence all our commitments on education, I would say we promised to transform education into a democratic system that would allow all our people access to quality Life-long Education and Training.

SADTU's input paper, which was presented at our recent MTEF Education Budget Workshop, expressed these objectives perfectly. In fact, SADTU was talking about the "fundamental policy objectives which the education budget must embody at this stage in South Africa's development", that is, right now, in 1998 - but our objectives were that same in 1994. SADTU's formulation is: "redress and equity to ensure access for all to quality education".

There are many ways in which one can evaluate our performance in addressing this objective. Today, I have chosen to examine our performance in respect to certain main themes that are implied in our commitment. I will not go into much detail, but merely highlight some of the key features of each of them.

Creating a single education system

We promised to do away with the race-based apartheid systems of education, and replace them with a single non-racial and democratic education system open to all, and we have done so.

In our first months in office, the newly-appointed MECs and I, together with our SMTs, worked very hard to destroy the 17 apartheid departments of education, and to create one single national Department, and nine provincial departments.

We started by creating organograms for these new departments of education, and then we appointed people into positions of leadership. Comrades will remember that the Interim Constitution had directed us to rationalise the old departments into new provincial ones. Such rationalisation also involved the rationalisation of personnel.

This process was immediately impacted upon by the sunset clauses, and the agreements reached in the Constitutional negotiations.

Firstly, the distinction between provincial powers and national powers in the Interim Constitution, meant that uniformity across education departments could only be achieved indirectly, through direct supervision and administration.

Secondly, the protection given to civil servants who had been part of the old order, meant that careful steps had to be taken to honour those agreements while making space for enough new blood to take the transformation agenda forward. Some new departments have been rather slow to reflect significant change in demographic terms.

Thirdly, the organic unification of provincial departments has proceeded better in some departments that others. In some provinces, unfortunately, the homeland and tricameral legacies have not yet been fully overcome and buried.

These matters are exceptionally important, and are being addressed with the provinces as part of our provincial assistance programme.

Moving from departments to schools, from January 1995, all schools were thrown open to all learners. The South African Schools Act , 1996, formalised this and brought together all the different types of schools in the country into two types of schools, public and independent. Again this had to be done in accordance with the Interim Constitution, which required that we negotiate with all existing governing bodies before changing their powers. The manner in which our national and provincial teams conducted these negotiations was an example of democratic participation unprecedented in our education system.

The Higher Education Act, 1997, has likewise unified the higher education system, and our Further Education and Training Bill will do the same for FET.

Therefore Comrade Chairperson, what we said we would do regarding the creation of a single, non-racial education system, we have done.

The challenge facing us now is to continue to work at the unfinished business of unification within provinces, and continue to make the single national education system work as one. This means continuing the process of deepening the non-racial and national character of our educational institutions and systems, and strengthening the excellent working relations between national and provinces.

Democratising the system

We said we would democratise the system, and make sure that the users of that system participate in the decision-making processes, and we have done so.

Firstly, through the National Education Policy Act, 1996 (NEPA), we established the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) and the Heads of Education Departments Committee (HEDCOM), to ensure the unity of the system. We put the Minister under an obligation to consult before making policy and laws.

The provinces have established a wide range of consultative bodies. At the national level, every major policy initiative, law, norms and standards and regulations, have been consulted upon extensively, through bodies such as the ABET COUNCIL, the Curriculum Committees, and the ECD Council, as well as through engagements with representative bodies of all kinds in civil society.

NEPA provided powers to create permanent mechanisms for consultation between the Ministry and major stakeholders, through the National Education and Training Council (NETC) and other sectoral structures. We will shortly be formalising the creation of the NETC, and the National Board for FET. The Council on Higher Education has been created in terms of the Higher Education Act, 1997, and has begun work.

Never before have stakeholders been so involved in the development of education policy as they have been since 1994.

The ELRC is, of course, the collective bargaining structure for educators. but we have yet to find a proper mechanism for consultation on major policy matters, such as the budget, outside the bargaining mechanism of the ELRC. Nevertheless, the ELRC has provided a consultative forum on a wide range of topics and issues. We have also afforded their representative bodies opportunities to consult with the political leadership in education whenever they need to do so. And of course, the unions have participated in countless Departmental committees on curriculum and other matters.

Governance of education has been democratised from top to bottom. Under the South African Schools Act, representative governing bodies have been elected in all our public schools. These governing bodies were given real power. They have the responsibility to decide on their direction in terms of national policy and in collaboration with principals and their staffs, and departments of education.

We also legalised democratic Student Representative Councils in schools and higher education institutions, and are doing so in FET institutions, and ensured that learners have their rightful place in the running of the schools and other institutions.

Comrade Chairperson, we said we would democratise the system, and we have done so.

Opening access to all

We promised to open access to all, and we have done so.

Our first action with regard to access was to ensure that schools were forced to have open and transparent admission policies that did not discriminate unfairly on any basis whatsoever. The South African Schools Act makes admissions open by law. The Higher Education Act does the same.

However we recognised that there were other barriers to access that were economic in nature. In this regard it will be remembered that we had promised to make education free and compulsory for the first ten years, including the reception year. Some prophets of doom have been claiming that we have failed in fulfilling this promise. I want to dispel that notion, and to explain what we have done.

Firstly, we have made education compulsory for children between certain school going ages. We have made it a criminal offence to prevent a child from attending school for whatever reason, so these farmers and employers that have been exploiting child labour, no longer have legal protection and are prohibited from doing so.

When it comes to free education, we have adopted a view that because of the vast inequalities in our country, it would be very unwise and unfair to privilege the rich once again by making education free for them also. We have adopted a view that the rich and the middle classes, in particular, have a responsibility to contribute directly towards strengthening our public education system, which had reached a point of near collapse. Our approach therefore, has been that it is the poor that can make a legitimate claim for free education at this stage.

We have made it illegal to exclude any child from school on the basis that parents are not able to pay fees. Secondly, we have been working on norms and standards for the exemption of poor parents form payment of fees. These will be published in August. Thirdly, the norms and standards will ensure that available public funds for education will be directed heavily towards the poorest communities.

I therefore want to submit to you, Chairperson, that with regard to our promise of free education, we are on track. We have only taken a wise move to delay general implementation because we believe that those that have benefited for years from the contributions of the poor and the workers of this country, must first contribute towards rebuilding the public school system destroyed by years of neglect. They owe it to the country to do so. To use the language of the alliance, chairperson, we have just made a tactical shift in order to pursue our principled goal in a manner that benefits the people we represent.

Integrating education and training

We said we would create a National Qualifications Framework that would integrate education and training, and allow for flexibility and articulation between programmes, recognising prior learning experience, and we have done so.

The South African Qualifications Authority Act, that we passed in 1996, established SAQA, and charged it with the responsibility of developing the NQF. SAQA has made major strides in developing the standard-setting and quality assurance structures for the NQF.

This NQF of ours is unique in the world, in being completely comprehensive, embracing the entire learning system. It embodies a unique collaboration between the Ministries of Education and Labour. To be truthful, when we started in government, we expected that our Ministry would indeed be a Ministry of Education and Training, and our teams worked hard to bring the training function from Labour into Education. But that was not to be. We have had to be content with collaboration across the departmental lines.

Perhaps this matter needs to be looked at again, especially in the light of the common interests we share in the Skills Development Bill and the FET Bill. But I am not speaking as a poacher. Our discussion must be principled, in terms of ANC policy. I am sure Comrade Shepherd will understand the issues very well.

In other words, we need to review our total approach to this matter of integrating education and training, to see whether we are still on track.

Regardless of the outcome, SAQA and the NQF remain the best tools for such integration, and therefore by establishing it, we have gone a long way to implement our policy objective.

Curriculum 2005

We said we would democratise the classroom and transform the apartheid curriculum totally, and make sure that children were active participants in their own learning. We are doing so.

We have transformed the curriculum into one that is based on the principles of outcomes based education and the NQF. Curriculum 2005 is slowly being implemented in the schools across our land. Its development saw practitioners, planners and academics coming together to argue and to develop consensus on what was to be taught and how.

This is, in my view, a magnificent and essential achievement for the education community. It was impossible to continue the laissez faire approach of simply tolerating apartheid-era curricula in the era of democracy, as some of our critics want us to do.

How could an ANC Minister be an accomplice in allowing apartheid-era poison to pollute our children in free South Africa? Comrade Chairperson, we could never do that. Never!

Of course there are problems in implementing Curriculum 2005 at the moment, but all of them relate to other things such as the availability of resources, and not to the curriculum itself. Even its critics, who point to the fact that teachers have not been trained adequately for it, cannot point out anything wrong with the curriculum itself.

If you want to see what this curriculum is doing in liberating our kids, I invite you to go to our grade ones.

Further Education and Training

Linked to our commitment to integrate education and training, was our promise to restructure Further Education and Training. We had to think through this crucial band in the NQF, between General Education and Higher Education, which has such close links to the workplace. We need new programmes, in order to ensure a more relevant learning experience for our youth, and more valid entry points into higher education and employment.

As I am talking to you, we are poised with the FET Bill and the draft FET White Paper, that are meant to transform further education and fulfil our polity goals.

The Bill will be debated in Parliament very soon. At the same time we are finalising the White Paper on Further Education and Training, and we will be taking it to Cabinet in a few weeks' time.

Higher Education

We said we would transform higher education into a single system that will be responsive to the needs of our country, while being competitive. We have done so.

The Higher Education Act which we passed last year, created a framework for a single higher education system, democratised governance structures both at a systemic and institutional level, and established a basis for planning within the system.

Just a few weeks ago we announced the members of the Council on Higher Education (CHE), a body which will play a central role in advising us. The first meeting of the Council took place a few weeks ago, under the chairmanship of Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu. The Council is charged with two key responsibilities: to advise the Minister on matters relating to Higher Education, and to perform the quality promotion and quality assurance functions for higher education, with the NQF framework.

The Council at its meeting also advised the Minister on the names of three persons who will constitute the Independent Assessor Panel. We will now be able to appoint an Independent Assessor to investigate serious problems at higher education institutions.

Our priorities in the next period are:

> The implementation of the planning framework of the White Paper
> Establishment of new funding arrangements
> Establishment of a new Management Information System
> Consolidation of NSFAS
> Incorporation of colleges into Higher Education

The major challenge facing higher education is to respond to the dual challenge of equity and development, that is to redress past inequalities and to respond to the new social, political and economic realities and opportunities. This challenge requires that higher Education must be planned, governed and funded as a single co-ordinated system.

The planning framework revolves around two key instruments: the development of a national higher education plan and institutional three-year "rolling" plans. Our approach is the gradual implementation of the planning framework, with the pace of implementation being guided by the capacity of Higher Education institutions and the Department to manage the charges required.

In terms of this first phase of planning, we have identified four key policy issues. These are concerned with the size and shape of the system, with student and staff equity, with the efficiency of the system and inter-institutional co-operation.

The funding of higher education must ensure equity in access and outcomes, improve quality and efficiency and link higher education activities with development needs. Over the next few years the Department of Education, advised by the CHE, will be developing a new public funding framework to steer the developments of Higher Education in accordance with national goals.

In this financial year, the higher education budget stands at just over R6 billion. In terms of the MTEF projections, it is anticipated that the average funding level to institutions will be maintained at current levels, while redress funding and NSFAS funding will increase. From 1994 to 1998, public funding for student financial aid has amounted to R860,5 million, and R362,5 million has been received in donor contributions. State allocations to the NSFAS will rise substantially over the next few years. We will soon announce the policy framework for a sustainable NSFAS, based on an investigation of the needs and an analysis of options for enhanced delivery.

Comrade Chairperson, we said we would transform higher education, and we are doing so.

The ANC's achievements in Education since 1994

Comrade Chairperson, many experts marvel at what we have been able to achieve in such a short time. We in the ANC alliance must be very proud that our education transformation agenda is on track, thanks to the wonderful efforts of all who have done their utmost to transform both the policy and the practice of the system. I refer in particular to the educators, the legislators, the students, the policy community, the academics, and the public servants.

We must boldly say that the ANC are the only ones who are capable of seeing what we have started through to the finish. Other parties can only reverse the gains that have been made so far.

That does not mean that we have overcome the educational challenges facing this country. On the contrary, our attempts at transforming the system in the last four years have thrown up a number of challenges, which we may not have been fully aware of before we embarked on our agenda, or which have become accentuated during the process of transformation. I want to turn to these very briefly.

Challenges for the next five years

When the Department of Education presented its 1998/99 Action Programme to the Portfolio Committee in February this year, it acknowledged that:

"We are far from achieving our vision for education, despite almost four years of intensive effort, unprecedented organisational and social changes in the system, and the exceptional dedication of tens of thousands of educators and public servants in education departments across the land.

"In particular, we have not yet made a lasting impression on the ingrained inequalities in educational provision, especially during a period of exceptional budgetary constraint.

"Our Campaign for the Culture of Learning, Teaching and Service is a year old. Little by little, its message is being heard, and the response from people on the ground is heartwarming. But we have not yet turned the corner.

"Under the best of circumstances, education is a long-term business. The President and the Minister of Education have insisted from the outset that the reconstruction and development of this complex system of ours is the work of many years."

When we took over in 1994, we chose a path for ourselves, a path of constitutional democracy, with respect for the rule of law. Sometimes this path has been frustrating to us in many ways, as our constituency became impatient, and our opposition used to argue that we are failing to fulfil our promises.

We now have the legal and policy frameworks, and we have very clear programmes and time-frames. The next five years will therefor be a test of the correctness of our frameworks as we move deeper into implementation. If I were to characterise the first five years of the democratic government in education in broad terms I would say that the first term of office was the term of policy papers, legislation to democratise and legitimate transformation, and piloting.

Without suggesting that this phase is completely over, the next five years must be mainly characterised by convincing delivery in terms of those policy frameworks and legislation. The next is the term of implementation.

Within the overall commitment to a better life for all, we have a duty of making our education better for all. The next term of office must therefore see us improving the quality of delivery in education. In order to achieve this we must find a way to overcome the obstacles in our system. Let me mention a few of these;

1. We need to keep working creatively within our constitutional dispensation, to consolidate unity in the system. It is imperative that the provincial funding system is established, both in terms of correct budgeting, more convincing redress for the poorest provinces, and in terms of disciplined financial management. We are laying heavy stress on these matters in our MTEF process, and in our support work with our provincial colleagues.
2. We recognise that we may not get the level of resources we would like, and that we need, to meet all our education challenges. This goes for every sphere of government. We therefore have to maximise the resources we have. This is more important in the black areas where there is growing destruction of confidence in the schools next door. We must make the schools work. We must achieve a high and convincing level of functionality in the schools in order to achieve our objectives. This is not just a job for Ministers, MECs and Departments of Education. It is also, fundamentally, a job for educators and learners and parents and civil society.
3. We need to ensure that provinces develop the necessary capacity, both human and material, to lead the transformation of education.
4. We must make the system far more efficient, reduce repetition and eliminate underage admissions.

Our 1998/99 Action Programme concentrates on all these areas, and provides a strong foundation to build on after 1999. If in the next five years we did nothing else but concentrate on these four areas and what they imply, I am sure we will make great strides forward to a better education for all. There is a fundamental precondition for successfully pursuing our agenda. This is that the Ministry, and the provincial authorities, together with the teachers' unions, consolidate the new relationship which has begun with the signing of last month's agreements. We are making a good start on implementation. But we must continue honestly, transparently and courageously.

It is essential that we stabilise the teaching service in every province at the right level in terms of educationally correct and financially sustainable national norms, and that we agree on processes, procedures and plans for managing our educator resources in the cause of equity and good education. We must invest more in management development. Our plans are there. We must all invest more in service delivery in the spirit of Batho Pele. We must all invest genuinely in the restoration of the culture of learning, teaching and serving.

Finally, Comrade Chairperson, we must all be honest about what transformation is really about. The situation in too many of our campuses at present is a disgrace to our democracy and to true learning. Opportunism and factionalism is parading under the guise of transformation. We need honest self-criticism in the structures of our movement, in order to help institutions break the destructive cycle of inward-looking campus politics which takes us nowhere.

In particular, we expect our student allies to be far more positive partners with us in carrying forward real transformation. The ANC and its allies must be totally committed to the vision of the higher education system as a dedicated advanced learning system, in service to our people. It is not a welfare system. It cannot condone laziness and shoddy intellectual performance. This means that campaigns must be intellectually and politically defensible. Before they are launched, they must be thoroughly analysed within the movement. Otherwise, the alliance will be in danger of descending into shallow populism, and our real educational goals will be compromised.

Conclusion

Chairperson, I want to conclude by re-emphasising that the agenda of the ANC alliance in education is very much on track. Much has been achieved so far. But a lot still needs to be done. We in the Ministry are convinced that success in our new policy areas such as ABET and ECD, depends much on our success in getting basic education right. We must concentrate on the schools, where our people have expected so much more to happen than has been achieved so far.

To do so, we must build our provinces, and stabilise and develop our educator cadre. We must set our own houses in order within further and higher education, in order to put all our energies into making learning opportunity really worth while for our students, and not a sham.

In short, we need to win the next election decisively in order to build on our gains, correct our mistakes, and continue to confront and overcome our challenges.

I thank you.

<EOD>