Briefing notes for the Minister of Basic Education, Honourable Mrs. Angie Motshekga, MP, at the fourth OR Tambo Debate: Implementing the National Development Plan (NDP), held at Wits School of Governance, Gauteng
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
The OR Tambo Debate Series on Implementing the NDP is designed to explore the policies and strategies that will turn the 2030 vision into lived reality. As I said in our Budget Speech in May, “We know how important basic education is to a nation’s current and future prosperity, development and growth.”
I am glad that this debate on achieving the NDP goals for basic education is not about whether the numbers or strategies articulated in the NDP are accurate, inclusive or effective. It is also not about bashing education departments or stakeholders (national and provincial) about what has been done or not done. There is sufficient consensus that something drastic ought to be done to get the basic education sector out of its current morass. For us the NDP is a cornerstone of this radical change that we hope to achieve in-order to put the basic education landscape into the correct pedestal.
Quite correctly today’s debate is about what practical steps we can take tomorrow, next month, in 2016, in five years, ten years or fifty years to achieve the ideals of the NDP.
Why Basic Education matters
Research has proven basic education contributes to improving child survival and maternal health – this is according to research undertaken by the World Bank (2004). It indicated that a child born to an educated mother is more than twice more likely to survive to the age of five than a child born to an uneducated mother. Educated mothers are also 50% more likely than mothers with no schooling to immunise their children against diseases (World Bank, 2004).
Basic education contributes to the fight against HIV/AIDS: A report by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE, 2004) asserts that educated people are healthier people. HIV/AIDS infection rates are halved among young people who finish primary school. Thus, if every child received a complete primary school education, at least seven million new cases of HIV could be prevented during the course of a decade.
Basic education helps to fight poverty and spur economic growth and is a prerequisite for tackling poverty and promoting short and long-term economic growth. No country has achieved continuous and rapid economic growth without at least 40% of adults being able to read and write (GCE, 2010).
At an individual level, a person’s earnings increase with each additional year of schooling they receive. This is especially true for additional years of higher education. Thus, people who are educated are able to earn more money and support their families, which helps economies to grow faster and poverty rates to decline.
The fundamental challenge for us in the sector is that despite positive changes, many children continue to drop out or pass without the necessary foundations to lead productive lives. The NDP suggests that this is due to limitations in human capacity (teaching, management and school support), learner language skills and a lack of cooperation between key stakeholders. The strategy proposed addresses all three areas and implementation has begun.
But what is the most important lever in achieving the kind of transformation that is required? What critical relationships (and corresponding responsibilities and accountabilities) will enable improvement in teaching and learning? These are key questions for today’s debate.
Let me hasten to add that the NDP has become part and parcel of all our strategic plans aimed at repositioning the sector for accelerated growth and radical transformation. One of the critical targets in the NDP is the call to increase the number of learners being eligible for a Bachelors programmes with Maths and Science by 450 000.
MST Strategy
In this regard, the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) has since approved the Mathematics, Science and Technology (MST) Sector Plan pronouncing national and provincial targets to increase the number of learners doing Mathematics. We have subsequently issued out a directive that schools that were not offering Mathematics should, with effect from this year (2015), incrementally offer the subject in Grade 10 as an option between Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy.
We are working relentlessly to promote the Mathematics and Physical Science subject choice combination; as a way to increase learner participation in pure Maths. This of course will significantly improve the learners’ chances of further education and training post-matric.
Radical Short-Term MST – the 1+4 Model
With the release of the 2014 ANA results, it became evident that the sector needed to craft a strategic response after the results showed that the Grade 9 Mathematics performance was unacceptably low average of 10.7%. After a series of engagements within the sector at the highest level we developed a Framework for improving Learner Performance in the Senior Phase.
In this regard, we agreed on 27 key activities and introduced the 1+4 Model. While the model is bold and radical, in practise it is quite simple – all Maths teachers receive high level training on Monday’s for the content that they will immediately teach that very same week. We are confident that this radical step will go a long way in improving Mathematics performance in the Senior Phase.
Reconfiguration of the Dinaledi and Technical Schools Conditional Grants:
As part of the review of the implementation of the MST strategy, the Department has completed the review process of the Dinaledi and Technical Secondary Schools conditional grants. This review was as recommended by a Ministerial Task Team.
The review has resulted in the introduction of a new Maths, Science and Technology conditional grant. The MST conditional grant is introduced from 2015/16 with a total of R1.1 billion over the 2015 MTEF (R352.2 million in 2015/16, R367.7 million in 2016/17 and R390.7 million in 2017/18). This allocation is taken from the Technical Secondary Schools Recapitalisation grant (R771.4 million over MTEF) and the Dinaledi Schools grant (R367 million over MTEF), which have been consolidated into a single grant to focus on Maths, Science and Technology.
The purpose of the new grant is to strengthen the implementation of the National Development Plan 2030 and the Action Plan 2019: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2030 by increasing the number of learners taking Mathematics, Sciences and Technology subjects, improving the success rates in the subjects and improving teachers’ capabilities. The grant will achieve its purpose through the provision of support and resources to schools, teachers and learners for the improvement of Mathematics, Sciences and Technology teaching and learning at selected public schools.
The grant will also provide ICT resources to schools, ensure teacher training especially at senior phase is accelerated and targeted learner support is prioritised to improve success and participation in MST subjects.
Big Fast Results Lab on MST
We have also commissioned a special Big Fast Results Lab (Operation Phakisa) on MST to develop a long-term strategy in improving the teacher content knowledge on these subjects. Secondly, the MST Lab is expected to develop mechanisms to encourage greater learner participation. Finally, it will finalise a sector plan needed for systematic and increased success rate.
Our second radical intervention is around the ICT. It is within this context that at its 1st Lekgotla in 2014, the Council for Education Ministers’ (CEM) resolved that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is to be one of key priorities for the sector to act as an anchor for the radical transformation of the basic education. We have come to the determination within the sector that ICT is crucial to improve the quality and efficiency of the system from a number of aspects including administration, e-learning and teacher training.
We are indeed mindful that for the ICT rollout to succeed requires an interdepartmental approach looking at various issues of connectivity, broadband, devices, electricity, and budget amongst others. In this regard:
- We are steaming ahead with the implementation of Access and Utilization of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) both for teaching and learning.
- Together with our local and international partners we have already convened a preparatory workshop on ICT laboratory as part of the Presidential fast track programme known as Big Fast Result project or Operation Phakisa.
- Phakisa is a Sesotho word, which means “Hurry Up”, this highlights the urgency with which government wants to deliver on some of the priorities encompassed in the National Development Plan (NDP). The President said the methodology was designed to answer fundamental implementation questions and find solutions, as the country tries to address poverty, inequality and unemployment, among other challenges, as stipulated in the NDP 2030.
Programme Director it is my pleasure to announce that the actual Operation Phakisa ICT Lab in Education has just concluded at the end of June. With the technical and facilitation collaboration with the World Bank and the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) at Treasury, the Lab brought together approximately 250 ICT in Education stakeholders for six intensive weeks with the aim to produce a systematic and detailed roll-out plan for the delivery of curriculum through ICT infrastructure to all schools across the nine provinces of South Africa.
The ICT Lab in Education focused on four main strategic objectives namely, a) Electronic content resource development and distribution, b) ICT professional development for management, teaching and learning, c) Access to ICT infrastructure and lastly d) Connectivity.
Teacher Capacity Building through the Provision of ICT Resources to Teacher Centres
As part of a strategy to build functional Teacher Centres, the DBE has partnered with the private sector and other institutions such as Vodacom, Cisco, Mindset Network and UNISA to provide ICT resources to all Teacher Centres.
Vodacom has provided Information and Communications Technology to 60 Teacher Centres by February 2015. It is envisaged that a further 20 Centres will be fully ICT enabled and compliant by August 2017 and the rest by 2019. In addition, Vodacom established a Digital Classroom Portal to service all Teachers and Teacher Centre Managers; they are conducting 54 Webinars for Maths and Science Grade 10 to 12 Teachers.
CISCO has committed to installing their CEEDBox Solution to all Teacher Centres by March 2017. This technology allows for bi-directional distance learning. It also includes access to CISCO IT Academy Training and the International Computer Drivers Licence course.
Mindset Network has committed to installing their satellite solution in 82 Teacher Centres.
UNISA has committed to install 30 Laptops; Desks; Furniture; Video Conference Facilities; Unlimited Wi-Fi; Microwave Connectivity; and Call Centres in 35 Teacher Centres.
Earlier today, the Deputy Minister in conjunction with our partners such as Microsoft, Vodacom, Huawei, Ikando CC, Mindset Trading, and Nelson Mandela Foundation launched e-Libraries. The purpose of this project is to use the established Vodacom ICT Resource Centres to set up 61 mobile libraries across the country.
e-Book readers/Kindles will be installed in these libraries and books will be loaded and read at the facilities. This initiative will enable those who don’t have access to reading material to read. As we know access to reading material is a major challenge in South Africa with 85% of South Africans not having access to a nearby library.
This is further proof that education has indeed become a societal issue. The worst kept secret is that the Department of Basic Education cannot work in vacuum. We work with and depend on the goodwill of thousands of our people.
Finally, on the 18 July, to coincide with the 6th Nelson Mandela International Day we are launching an ambitious project to have 1000 functional libraries in our schools per annum until 2019. As a start, our target is to provide at least two (2) libraries in each of the nine (9) provinces as a launching pad of this campaign. We have already convened a Breakfast Meeting with our key stakeholders from both the public sector and private sector to share our plans with them and mobilise monetary and non-monetary resources.
To show support and gratitude to this initiative and guided by Madiba’s passion for education and reading, my department has launched a drive to collect books from all DBE officials. From the collected donations, 67 books will be given to the 18 new ASIDI Libraries in translation to the 67 minutes of service to honour Madiba’s legacy.
In addition, we have also partnered with the Department of Arts and Culture who have agreed to release about 78 million rands for the construction of libraries in the financial year alone.
Of course all these initiative are vital for the health of our basic education sector. As you can see a lot is being done but a lot more is needed so that we can have the meaningful traction that we need to radically transform our sector. I thank all participants in this debate for sober analysis and practical suggestions.
Conclusion
Comrade OR. Tambo would have been impressed by the high level of this engagement. Comrade Tambo was more just an outstanding leader but an exceptional learner and student. He graduated with a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and Physics from Fort Hare University.
He then enrolled for a diploma in higher education although he could not complete it after he was expelled for his political activism. Despite this predicament OR went to his alma mater, St Peter's, where he taught Physics and Mathematics for five years. Later on OR completed his post-graduate degree in Law and went to open the first black-owned legal practice in Johannesburg with his friend and fellow comrade one Nelson R. Mandela, our founding father of the new South Africa.
President OR Tambo was indeed, for the better part of his adult life, an embodiment of all that was good about the ANC, and was the pride – body and soul - of the ANC. He was the chief custodian of the principles of fundamental social change.
He won the respect of his peers and the world at large through his exemplary conduct. He was a repository of the best values and principles upon which our movement was founded and sustained. He truly represented the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the masses of our people. Indeed, I thank you for keeping alive the memory of this outstanding son of the soil.
