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9 February 2009

Madam Speaker, President Motlanthe,

The President's address clearly indicated that the government remains committed to creating the conditions for a better life for all of our people.

He called on all of us to become partners in mobilising society for change, in mobilising for a better life for all.

Inclusion of all in the change agenda is one of the most critical challenges of every aspect of socio-economic change in South Africa. We have to find a mobilisation strategy or programme that will convincingly persuade every person that they have a core and critical role to play in changing their lives with government support and assistance. The society of engaged citizens creating the vista of development and enterprise envisioned by former President Mandela cannot become a reality if we constrain the people of South Africa by rendering them observers of life and opportunity rather than working with them to become full participants in building a new thriving society in which every person can make a difference.

This urgency of agency and motivated change agent is most necessary in the education sector. We must secure public collaboration for excellence far more vigorously than we have done up to now. We must support all our people to aspire to, to demand and in fact to expect excellence.

The programme of change we have developed as the African National Congress (ANC) intends to give greater practical meaning to the ideals of people's education. Alongside strategies directed at addressing the quality and provision shortcomings identified by the President it is the ANC's intention to work with communities to ensure that they have the skills and information that will allow them to make a direct contribution to educational change in their community. One of the striking features of the ANC focus since December 2007 is the manner in which the leadership of the ANC has engaged in key public debates on education. The focus on education and its identification as a key priority for the next ten years signifies a welcome shift in emphasis.

The continuing inadequacies and failures in parts of the system require urgent review and prioritisation of interventions that can and will make a difference.

The President was succinct in outlining the successes in education - the drop in the educator: learner ratio; almost universal access in terms of enrolment at primary school level; an improvement in the number of pupils passing mathematics (I shall report on the expert panel's report on the 2008 maths exam this week, the findings are very encouraging); and improving infrastructure in poor areas. I am told by all provinces that there are no schools under trees that they continue to build schools and provide mobile facilities when there are shortages or disasters.

The President outlined the future focus of education interventions. These will be: the drop-out rate at secondary and tertiary levels, addressing the shortage of skills needed by society, invigorated attention to eroding the legacy of under-performance in our poorer schools.

The President's conclusion on the education sector "school report" was clearly – "could do much better" especially with the challenge of breaking the cycle of poverty and inequality.

It's our aim to tackle infrastructural inadequacies, national, provincial and district education incompetence, and teacher incapacity over the next five years.

The ANC will build alliances with all stakeholders in education to improve education together. We will work with them to craft a national social compact for quality education that will ensure action on the non-negotiables we agreed at Polokwane and set key performance targets for every category of stakeholder.

We are fortunate that the Schools Act allows for such co-operation we will ensure we make partnerships that work for every school and for every child. One of the areas of action must be increased empowerment of school governing bodies (SGBs) and the provision of empowering support to their representative associations.

Fortunately we have already mobilised for this collaboration through the teaching and learning campaign. Teacher unions, parents, learners and government have all identified a set of agreed commitments that each sector must live and work by. If we all give the commitments space to thrive the changes we all desire in education will develop at an accelerated pace. If teacher unions act on their commitment to be in class on time teaching, sober, not abusive, knowledgeable and competent we will see change. If the Minister of Education and MECs avoid policy overload and work with the system to make it more predictable and efficient, well resourced and granted space to innovate and focus on teaching we will see change. If civil servants execute their tasks with due attention to getting things right and administration for service with integrity we will see change.

The ANC will strengthen partnerships and stakeholder participation in the coming period to tackle three pressing issues: infrastructural under-investment, under-performance, and incapacity.

Working closely with education stakeholders, the ANC has developed and adopted an education roadmap. It focuses on what already exists and on making the system work far better. It does not radically redesign the system; rather it indicates where modification and review may benefit the sector. It seeks to close the gap between what we aspire to and what actually happens in our education system.

It focuses on improving the education system as a whole. It focuses on expanding early childhood care and learning. It focuses on eroding infrastructural backlogs with an innovative plan for funding. It focuses on training new and better teachers and retraining old ones. It focuses on encouraging teachers to use text books, to be in class on time, and to spread the joy of teaching. It supports teachers to focus on the basics of learning through the Foundation for Learning framework that provides guidelines and support to teachers on how to teach reading, writing and numeracy in the early grades.

It is the African National Congress's (ANC) "better resources" strategy that indicates that better learning will result from investing more and earlier in children and teachers. This is not a mere belief as evidenced by the increased resourcing for early childhood development (ECD) in all provincial budgets.

In fact the four years since 2005 have witnessed significantly increased investment in education improvement. More and better schools have been built, the Further Education and Training Colleges (FET colleges) recapitalisation programme has been implemented successfully. New life has been given to these previously neglected institutions. The no fee schools policy has freed many families from the worry of financial exclusion and the re–introduction of teacher bursaries has renewed interest in the profession. But clearly, Madam Speaker, there are many failings. I received the report on the late release of results it indicates incompetence, inadequate preparation and poor administrative ability in some of our examination offices. We will correct all the failings and I repeat my apologies to all candidates their families and friends who fell victim to our inadequacies.

Much remains to be done and we are ready to redouble our efforts as the ANC. The lessons from research show that schools don't improve on their own. They need appropriate support from parents their staff government and the broad community.

Madam Speaker there has been much criticism of the new curriculum. We have made changes to the original framework and continue to work with teachers and experts to improve our support to teachers. My department is working hard to address concerns from teachers and the National Curriculum Statement that we have now, after several revisions, is a vast improvement over the framework and policy introduced in 1998.

Fortunately there are thousands of teachers who have taken on the opportunity to transform teaching and learning with vigour, determination and enthusiasm. Our thanks go to each one of them.

The President focused on schools. It is often like this. Schools loom large in our consciousness. But we cannot forget colleges and universities. We cannot forget that students can go to FET colleges for free. There is over a R100 million for college bursaries each year.

Our policy of expanding access to study at higher education institutions has been successful in attracting first-generation black and female students into higher education. Support has been provided to parents and extended families that cannot afford university fees.

Universities make bursaries available and the state provides support through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). In 2004 the NSFAS allocation was R578 million. In 2008 our NSFAS allocation to universities was R1,3 billion and a further R433 million was added from recovered funds to bring the NSFAS budget to over R1,8 billion.

In 2007 we allocated R120 million for teacher bursaries, and R100 million for FET college bursaries.

The total number of students supported to date is 479 589. Currently, one in four undergraduate students has a NSFAS loan/bursary. Due to concerns expressed about the scheme's impact we intend to conduct a review of the scheme this year and to determine whether further innovative strategies are required to ensure that increased numbers of young people are supported.

We are also working with universities to improve the success rate of students at universities and colleges. In the next three years over three billion rand will be invested in infrastructure improvement in higher education, in supporting improved teaching and residential facilities and in focusing on expanding access to scarce skills areas.

Madam Speaker this is a brief outline of the ANC plans for education we do undertake to urgently focus on quality efficiency and success in all our interventions in education.

ANC today, 21 November 2008
Education

To a better and quality education that produces skills required for our economy!

Since April 2008, the ANC Health and Education Committee have been involved in a major policy review of education, implementing the resolutions of the ANC's 52nd National Conference, held in December 2007.

The conference declared education and health major priorities for social transformation for the next five years.

This has been a seven-month dynamic and participatory process led by the ANC, involving the alliance and relevant government departments. The process was further broadened to involve interaction with a range of stakeholders, including teachers and student organisations, policy analysts, academics. Various technical teams were established to work on a number of policy areas.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) hosted both the education and health policy review processes, which culminated in the release of draft reports on roadmaps for education and health.

It is against this background that the ANC has publicly release the report on education for purposes of public discussion and debate. This report only covers the Ten-Point Plan for the schooling system - from early childhood to primary and secondary schooling. Further reports on higher education and skills development will be further communicated to the public once they are ready.

The report on Roadmap for health is being finalised and it will also released to the public as soon as it is ready.

The ANC government has recorded significant achievements since 1994 in transforming our schooling system from its apartheid past. Access to primary and secondary schooling has reached near universal enrolment, with the participation of girls the highest in the world.

Participation rate for children aged four and five (Grade R) in early child development has now reached 70 percent. The matriculation pass rate has increased from 58 percent in 1994 to 65 percent in 2007. Pupil-to-teacher ratios have improved from 43 to 1 in 1996 to 32 to 1 in 2006.

Despite these significant achievements, major challenges remain in the quality of education. This is demonstrated by the fact that more than five million people cannot read and write and our school system performs poorly in areas like maths and science.

We have not produced enough skills required for our economy. As a result, skills shortage has become a binding constraint on employment creation and growth. This raises serious concerns regarding teaching and learning in our schooling system, and therefore the need to review the experience we have accumulated, including the implementation of Outcome Based Education (OBE). Contrary to press reports, no decision has been taken to scrap OBE.

The review process of the Department of Education will guide us on its future.

The infrastructure backlog has been highlighted. This requires more resources and innovative ways to fund education system.

The report identifies key interventions - the Ten-Point Plan - needed to build on achievements made in the last 15 years, as well as addressing the challenges going forward. The following constitute the proposed core elements of interventions:

In school

* Teachers to be in-class, on time, teaching. Teachers to also be required to have and use textbooks in class.

* Focus efforts on improving the quality of early childhood education and primary schools, including implementing the Foundations for Learning Campaign, emphasising the promotion of language and numeracy.

* Conduct external tests for all grade three and grade six learners every year, and provide the results to parents.

* Ensure effective evaluation of all teachers based on the extent to which learner performances improve, with results influencing occupationally specific dispensation pay for teachers.

* Enhance recruitment of quality teachers and strengthen teacher development.

Support to school.

* Strengthen management capacity to ensure working districts and schools. This entails bringing in management capacity from the private sector, civil society and elsewhere in the public sector.

* Increase the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education, including audiovisual teaching materials in the classroom to supplement teaching and demonstrate quality teaching to learners and educators.

* Improve national-provincial alignment and efficiency of education expenditure, through procuring textbooks nationally and allocating resources to improve district capacity. In this regard, the use of conditional grants is an important tool to ensure alignment.

Community

* Develop a social compact for quality education. This will include a national consultative forum dedicated to clarifying the "non-negotiables" and performance targets for key stakeholders, and the monitoring thereof. Mobilisation of communities at all levels should be encouraged to raise awareness and participation in education issues. Examples include graduates assisting their former schools, corporate social investment, party branch campaigns to clean up schools, and supporting food gardens, and encouraging young graduates to enter teaching ("Teach SA").
* Implement poverty combating measures that improve the environment for learning and teaching, such as a nutrition programme (cross-cutting programme with health), basic infrastructure for schools, and social support for children.

Issued by: Department of Education
9 February 2009