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12 November 2008

The department provides education which caters for basic and secondary education and we are increasing access to learners with special needs as part of the government's strategy to promote an inclusive society. Since 1994, we have achieved near universalisation in basic schooling and increasingly realising universalisation at the secondary schooling level. Learner enrolment in the public ordinary sector highlights the increase in learner enrolment in Gauteng.

It shows that enrolment had increased from a total of 1 374 376 learners in 1994 to 1 716 196 in 2008 - an increase of 25 percent. There were 34 percent more learners in Grade 12 and 27 percent more learners in Grade 7 in 2008 than in 1995.

We have over 12 years improved learner performance in the Grade 12 exit examinations by over 23 percent. We currently invest 80 percent of our education budget on providing public ordinary schooling.

The matric pass rate for the province has shown a steady increase over the period 1998 to 2003 but has declined in 2004 and in 2005 but increased in 2006 with a decrease in 2007.

However, the quality of passes with regard to endorsement has improved in the last two years. Since 1998, the provincial average has been substantially above the national average.

The rolling out of the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) introduced new challenges whereby educators across the province had to go through the orientation programme to enable them to facilitate the learning and teaching process within the framework of the National Curriculum Statement. Whilst noting the significance of the phasing in of the new curriculum the province experienced a decline in the senior certificate (matric) pass rate as from 2005 up to 2007. The foundation phase educators have been implementing the NCS for the past five years, and the majority of educators still experience challenges with regard to the implementation of the curriculum across the three learning programmes.

In 2007, the department revised the Teacher Development Strategy with a view to enhance teacher competency and development with the intention to improve on the provision of quality education and learner achievement across all grades. This process will be coupled with strong professional support to educational institutions. Educators will receive additional support in relation to the utilisation of Learning and Teaching Support Material (LTSM). Furthermore, the department is in the process of identifying the exact areas of need through a provincial research project, and the findings will form the basis for programmatic interventions.

As part of the strategy to alleviate the effects of poverty, redress imbalances of the past and ensure that all children exercise their right to basic education, school fees were eliminated at Gauteng's poorest schools as from January 2007. A total of 425 schools in Gauteng were declared no-fee schools. These are the schools which fall into quintile rankings 1 and 2 as determined by the National Quintile Ranking System. The per capita allocation for these learners is R775. For learners in quintiles 3, 4 and 5 the per capita allocation is R554, R369 and R123 respectively. In the case of no-fee schools without Section 21 functions, a total of 77 schools, a top slice amount had been transferred to each of these schools to address their running costs.

As from 2008, a total of 49 percent of learners in Gauteng will not be required to pay school fees as we are in the process of declaring quintile 3 schools as no-fee schools on a voluntary basis. This will benefit more than 865 000 learners in over 1 055 schools in the province. These schools will receive the national maximum adequacy grant of R775 per learner. A total of 449 schools have volunteered to take the challenge of being no-fee schools.

I am pleased to announce that we have made significant progress in realising an Integrated Childhood Development Programme. We have put into place a pro-poor package targeting children and youth at risk and have introduced the Bana Pele programme towards which education provides access to free schooling for over 890 000 learners and support learners who are prevented from access to schools where fees are a barrier to access. In addition, we are bussing over 40 000 learners to schools in areas where there is insufficient or no learning spaces. In primary schools, we are providing a basic nutritional meal for all learners in schools that are in quintiles 1 to 3.

We have also established an Early Childhood Development (ECD) Institute, soon to be launched, within the Education Department, to ensure that a co-ordinated strategy is delivered for pre-Grade R ECD. The institute will support the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) to regularise the provision of ECD across the province and local governments.

The education department has already reached over 45 000 children through our Grade R programme in over 1 200 public and community-based sites.

The National School Nutrition Programme operates within the framework of the conditional grant via the national Department of Education (DoE). The main aim is to ensure that the needy learners receive the necessary feeding at primary schools on a daily basis. A total of 508 319 learners in 1 250 schools across the province are benefiting from the National School Nutrition Programme. This is well above the projected target for the 2008/09 financial year of 470 000 learners. As a result of the demarcation process the department inherited a total of 90 service providers from the North West Province (NWP) and two from Mpumalanga. In order to maintain our high standard of operations all service providers have been oriented on the processes and procedures to ensure compliance and continuity.

The number of learners on the National Schools Nutrition Programme has increased by 150 percent from 172 325 learners being fed in 2004.

While the quality of learning remains the single biggest challenge we have put into place a multi-pronged strategy to address poor literacy, numeracy and learner attainment. The four elements are:
* Getting resourcing right - Here we are optimising what we already have by making more informed and better choices with schools and teachers including the optimal utilisation of schools
* Getting schools to work - Here we are improving public participation in quality through improved governance by governing bodies and improved resource and learning programme management by school management teams
* Getting learning right - here we are focusing on improving the classroom interaction by teachers and learners
* Developing teachers to support the curriculum

As the MEC for Education, I remain committed to realising the goals of education transformation as outlined in the African National Congress (ANC) Manifesto and Provincial Five Year Plan.

For more information, contact:
Panyaza Lesufi
Cell: 083 383 4517

Issued by: Department of Education, Gauteng Provincial Government
12 November 2008
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government (http://www.gautengonline.gov.za)