Good morning,
Thank you for taking the time to join us this morning.
We called you here to give you an update on progress with the Matric examinations and update on various projects undertaken by the Basic Education department in the last quarter.
National Senior Certificate
The Matric examinations are currently on-going and we are happy to report that thus far this year’s NSC examinations have seen no major incidents. The exams will be finalised by the end of the month and we continue to wish our matriculants well as they continue. Marking has already started in Limpopo with Gauteng to follow and all provinces will get underway with marking by the 1st of December.
We will be announcing the results on the 6th of January next year. The entire process including capturing and standardisation by Umalusi will be completed by the 29th of December and the remaining time will be used for verification and cleaning up of data before we release the results publically.
We are hoping that as we did last year we will have exciting outcomes, encouraged by the fact that a number of corporates and academic institutions will be providing full scholarships for top learners.
As you are aware there has been a task team appointed to look into various aspects of the NSC including the publishing of the NSC results in newspapers. This task team is due to report back to me in April next year with their findings. In the meantime I will be holding meetings with the Young Communist League and Cosas who have raised concerns about these processes and I will be asking them to make their submissions in the form of presentations to the task team.
Annual National Assessment
The ANA 2013 process is drawing to a close. The DBE and the provinces oversaw the administration of the tests in the schools in September. An independent agency was appointed to conduct a parallel process of verifying the administration of tests in sampled schools and the marking of the learner responses from these schools.
Both the independent agency and the provinces are finalising the capturing and cleaning of the data to facilitate analysis and reporting of the results. The results will be released to the people of South Africa on 5 December 2013.
Infrastructure
The Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) continues to make headway in its programme to eradicate schools built from inappropriate structures from the landscape. We have gone through a very exciting period where we are able to hand over a school every week.
The Deputy Minister Enver Surty is in the Libode district in the Eastern Cape today, where he is officially handing over the Gungubele Primary school which is the 18th school we have handed over so far in the one school a week programme. This, like the other ASIDI schools, is a state of the art facility costing over 15 million rand equipped with a multimedia centre with a library and computer laboratory.
Norms and Standards
As part of addressing infrastructure challenges we will be meeting the deadline to publish the school infrastructure norms and standards. We have received voluminous submissions from various entities and we would like to thank those who participated in this process for their submissions.
One of the concerns raised with the norms and standards was the timeframes allocated to the completion of delivery for school infrastructure. We have made a major concession in this regard based on the public concern and will therefore be publishing that we will annually review these time frames based on the country’s fiscus.
We are of the view that this will put a continuous focus on the issue and an on-going mandate to constantly improve on delivery. The Norms and Standards will be published next Friday, 29th November 2013.
Furniture
We have made many major strides in the delivery of infrastructure. Besides the one school a week programme that was launched on the 22nd of July this year, the shortage of school furniture has been identified as one of the challenges that have a negative effect towards achieving the delivery of quality education to learners in schools.
I am proud to report on some of the initiatives to address these, this includes being able to procure furniture for all new infrastructure projects through the infrastructure grant and establishing an interprovincial task team on school furniture.
The Department has also entered into collaboration agreements with Department of Labour (DOL) and the Department of Correctional Services and the Department of Environmental Affairs for the manufacturing and delivery of school furniture. This project is extremely exciting because we are not forced to pay for exorbitantly priced school desks for example. Through this programme we have seen the delivery of furniture to 181 schools.
Learner Teacher Support Material (LTSM) and 2014 Readiness
Workbooks
We have made huge inroads into the distribution of Learning and Teaching Support Material. The Department of Basic Education distributes more than 50 Million Workbooks every year. This is as part of the commitment to improving literacy and numeracy skills of learners, with specific targets set from now until 2014.
To achieve this, the Department has produced a series of workbooks to assist learners in Grade R-9. In 2013 thus far the DBE has provided in excess of 50 million workbooks Grades 1-9 workbooks in both volume 1 and 2), Grade R learners receive 1 book for every term (4) a total of 3 600 000 Grade R work books and an excess of 16 million Natural Science workbooks for grades 4-6. The total amount of workbooks distributed by DBE in 2013 alone is 70 million.
We will continue to distribute these workbooks in line with the CAPS curriculum next year as teachers and parents have indicated they are a very helpful resource.
ICT
The department is moving with the times and ensuring that we are part of the ever changing digital landscape. As part of our ICT roll out we have managed to make all our work books available online and we are continuing to convert workbooks from grades 1 to 9 into interactive applications.
We have started this with the foundation phase and are working with partners in the private sector on this project. The Natural Science and technology work book for grades 4,5and 6 are available interactively on our digital portal.
By interactive we mean that our learners can actually conduct interactive experiments themselves on a computer, smart phone or tablet application where they can see the effects of actual science experiments as if it were done in a lab. The NST interactive workbook for grade 7, 8 and 9 will be interactive by the end of the year.
We are working with the Department of Communications to finalise an education cloud which is located at www.educloud.org.za. This cloud will host teacher development material as well as learner material.
We are also piloting an exciting project with the Department of Science and Technology and CSIR in Cofimvaba in the rural Eastern Cape where we are rolling out a tablet solution for teachers and learners, through this solution we will also be providing modernised content.
Textbooks
As you know we are aiming to have one text book per child per subject by 2014 and this is no easy feat, but we have almost completed delivery in all provinces and the process is currently on-going. We are confident that by the start of the school year all learners will have a text book in their hand.
Incremental Introduction of African Languages
The department intends on incrementally introducing the African Language Policy in 2014 which intends to promote and develop previously marginalised languages and expose learners to languages academically that they may use at home but do not study as part of the curriculum, as well as introduce those who have never been exposed to an African Language.
Therefore effectively all learners will be offered three languages. The implications for the introduction will result in an extra two or three hours of teaching and learning per week. This proposal has been widely welcomed and the consultation processes are still ongoing.
As the department we are ready to incrementally introduce the African language as an additional language with full Grade 1 implementation by 2015.
Education Collaboration Framework
The National Education Collaboration Trust is making progress. The NECT is envisaged in the Education Collaboration Framework, which was developed by a range of stakeholders in response to the National Development Plan, which takes forward Government’s commitment to prioritising education.
On Friday last week the Education Dialogue held its inaugural meeting at Freedom Park, here in Pretoria. The Dialogue is one of the 5 programmes of the Trust and engages in discussions with a consultative forum made up of experts representing all sectors of the education landscape; that includes academics, business representatives, NGOs to mention but a few.
The discussions focused on the professionalization of teaching and on how to make schools effective. We are delighted that our stakeholders have come on board in a joint effort to bring to life the ideals of the National Development Plan (NDP).
Curriculum
Ladies and gentlemen, next year we complete implementation of Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements when we roll-out in Grades 7-9 and 12.
The CAPS were introduced in 2012 in the Foundation Phase, with success. The content is simplified and clearer for teachers to teach and learners to learn better. Content coverage per term for each grade is mapped out in the CAPS. This should account for improved results in Grades 1 to 3 in 2012.
Our department has developed draft CAPS for technical schools, which will cater for specialisation in civil technology, electrical technology, mechanical technology, technical science and technical mathematics. We have developed a national instrument to monitor curriculum coverage in schools. This helps to monitor, guide, control and support teaching.
Maths and Science Task Team
In February 2013, I established a Ministerial Task Team for Mathematics, Science and Technology (MST) to conduct an investigation into the implementation of the Mathematics, Science and Technology Strategy.
The department has made noticeable progress in responding to the recommendations of the Task Team. We’ve developed an implementation plan in response to the recommendations of this task-team. Among other steps, the Department of Basic Education is planning to establish a Maths, Science and Technology department.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The main reasons for progress that we now see in the education sector include our sustained focus on the 3Ts of the Teacher, Text and Time on Task. Many South Africans have responded to our call to making Education a societal issue by getting involved in various ways and supporting government’s number one priority and for that I thank you.
Thank you!
