Education Department making progress towards meeting objectives of current financial year
The Department of Basic Education has briefed Parliament on its performance towards meeting its strategic objectives for the financial year 2015/16.
The Department shared its First Quarterly Report to the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education in Cape Town earlier today. The core business of the Department is to develop curriculum and assessment policies and monitor and support implementation by provinces.
Learner, Teacher Support Material
The department focused on corrections of the data received from provinces and finalisation of print orders. Printing of 2016 workbooks commenced in May 2015. As of 29 June 2015 a total number of 23 432 954 Grades 1 to 9 workbooks had been printed which represented 88% of the 26 500 000 volume 1 workbooks. The department has developed the national catalogue for Grade 10-12 FET literature and the Grade R materials catalogue was released in April 2015.
The revised catalogue for Grade 4-6 and Grade 1-3 addendum was released in April 2015. The department is also making progress when it comes to the development of State-owned textbooks. The following books have been developed and completed: Grades 4-6 Mathematics textbooks, Grade 10 Technical Mathematics, Grades 10 Technical Science.
Maths Science and Technology
The department is monitoring the implementation of 1+4 intervention Model. The department has also completed lesson plans for all four terms and has distributed to all provinces. The department has also completed the monitoring instrument that will assist to track progress of the model.
Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI)
In terms of the replacement of inappropriate schools: As at 30 June 2015, 116 schools had been completed. 228 inappropriate schools in the Eastern Cape are affected by rationalisation and mergers and have not been allocated to any implementing agents:
- Sanitation: 439 of 741 schools targeted for Sanitation projects have been provided with sanitation facilities.
- Water: 518 of 1120 schools targeted for Water projects have been have been provided with water.
- Electricity: 295 of 914 schools Electricity have been provided with electricity.
Care and Support
National School Nutrition Programme
For the period under review NSNP reached 15 232 Quintile 1-3 and 5 116 Quintile 1-3 secondary school as well as 262 specials schools in all nine provinces. This bring to a total of 9 125 358 learners that benefited from the programme. Monitoring of NSNP for the period under review 4 schools were visited in the Western Cape Province in 3 districts were monitored against a quarterly target of 66 schools.
Health and Promotion
Peer education: 220 Peer Educator and Peer Mentor manuals, Health sessions, posters and 40 000 ISHP leaflets were printed to be distributed to 286 schools in 8 districts in KZN, MP and EC.
HIV & TB: Finalising the Draft DBE National Policy on HIV, STIs and TB. The policy was gazetted and published on 5 May 2015 for public comments, which closed on 19 June.
HIV & Reproductive Health: The department reached a total of 2 497 educators who received training on sexual and reproductive health programmes.
The priorities of the Department of Basic Education are aligned to the Delivery Agreement of Outcome 1 which is "Improving the quality of Basic Education and the Action Plan to 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025”.
Enquiries:
Elijah Mhlanga
Cell: 083 580 8275
