C Dugmore: Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of
Southern Africa (AABASA) annual convention

23 August 2007

Victor Sekese, National President
Sipho Phakathi, General Secretary
Nicolette Jacobs, Western Cape Chairperson of AABASA
Other senior members and officials of AABASA
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

Thank you for the honour to address your 22nd Annual Convention, thank you
for choosing Cape Town. I trust that those delegates, who have not yet fully
experience the beauty of Cape Town, will get an opportunity to do so in the
next day or two. I am sure my Premier (Ebrahim Rasool) has this morning
welcomed you, but I want to welcome you, again, nevertheless.

In 1953, Hendrik Verwoerd, chief architect of apartheid, stood up in
Parliament and posed the question: "What is the point of teaching a bantu child
mathematics when he cannot use it in practice? I will reform education so that
natives will be taught from childhood to realise that equality with Europeans
is not for them."

At that time Verwoerd was minister of education in the nationalist
government and his view was that as blacks were never going to be allowed to
compete economically with whites, their education need fit them only for menial
jobs. Thus, as we were on the brink of the 1990 liberation breakthrough,
according to the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
of the 163 800 professionals working in the field of science and technology
then, only one percent were black, which is no surprise of course.

Like all the other sector of the economy, the chartered accounting (CA)
profession is growing strongly and its business is becoming increasingly
complex, but the industry experiences shortage of high-level skills, especially
from among black South Africans. Our own provincial micro economic analyses
confirm that there is a dire shortage of engineers, chartered accountants,
financial and technical skills that pose a serious threat to growth
expectations in this province.

According to the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the rapid increase
in the demand for CAs was found to extend beyond the financial-services
industry. Employers in various sectors have realised that the high-level skills
of CAs could be used in a diverse range of functions, including strategic
planning and the monitoring of productivity. This realisation has contributed
to chartered accounting being classified as a super-growth occupation (HSRC
1999:52).

About one-tenth of organisations surveyed, referred to difficulties
experienced in recruiting black managers and professionals. The researchers
came to the conclusion that the earlier exclusion of blacks from professional
and managerial positions was having a serious effect on the availability of
skills. Not only are policies on affirmative action forcing employers into
unhealthy competition for these skills, but the total pool of experienced
high-level human resources also appears to be too small to fulfil the current
need of the country (HSRC 1999:118-120).

From figures provided to my office from leading members of the industry (SA
Instituted of Chartered Accountants) there is a total of 26 389 Chartered
Accountants in South Africa, of which 3 262 are black, including African,
Coloured and Indian. Of these 6 389 (24%) are women, and specifically 299
African women, 645 Indian women and 209 Coloured women. Compare this to 5 225
white women CAs and 17 866 white males.

The low female representation also has a lot to do with perceptions at
school level, where female learners are not encouraged to study mathematics,
science, accountancy or technology related subjects. I am sure you know the
figures by now, and clearly it tells us that the legacies of Verwoerd still run
deep. The Premier has probably already addressed you on the vision of this
provincial government to make the Western Cape a Home for All. To arrive at
this vision, we have adopted an economic development strategy, Ikapa Elihlumayo
to grow and share the Cape.

As one of the lead strategies, which underpin Ikapa Elihlumayo, we as
education have been tasked with the Human Capital Development Strategy, with a
focus on youth. When former United States of America (USA) President Bill
Clinton was campaigning for the Presidency, he remarked about a question put to
him: "it's about the economy, stupid!" Similarly, for us it's about the
curriculum.

Therefore, one of the key objectives of our Human Capital Development
Strategy is to increase participation and success rates of our youth in Further
Education Training (FET) colleges and higher education institutions, especially
for learners from poor families. And in this regard we have to do a lot of hard
work to improve on the quality of the passes of our matric learners.

The challenge that we faced prior to 1990 still remains and that is to
create an education and training system that ensures learners are able to
realise their full potential and participate meaningfully in the economy,
locally and globally. The Senior Certificate (SC) examination, or matric as it
is popularly known, plays a crucial role in the South African education system
at the moment. It marks the culmination of twelve years of schooling, and it is
the main exit point from the schooling system.

The Senior Certificate is the most popular determinant of access to Higher
Education and increasingly, though to a lesser extent, to the world of work. As
a result of its 'high stakes' nature, the Senior Certificate examinations
attract a great deal of public interests. Therefore, in terms of our analyses
of the Western Cape matric results in the last few years; just above 50% of
ex-CED school learners received endorsements; whereas for ex- House of
Representatives (HOR) learner it was about 13%; and ex- Department of Education
and Training (DET) learners almost five percent!

Of the 10 144 African learners who wrote the matric certificate in 2005 only
2,8% passed Accountancy on the higher grade that means 240 learners! For
Mathematics on the higher grade 3,9% passed, which is 395 learners and 4,3%
passed Physical Science on the higher grade, which is 436 learners!

The same applies for coloured learners in these subjects. Of the 18 772 who
wrote the Senior Certificate Examinations, passed Accountancy on the higher
grade (1,126 learners), 4,9% passed Mathematics on the higher grade (919
learners) and 4,7% passed Physical Science on the higher grade that is 882
learners!

On the other hand, the results of white learners in this regard are quite
extraordinary when one does comparative analyses. Of the 8 795 white learners
who wrote, 21,3% passed Accountancy on the higher grade, 30,2% passed Maths on
the higher grade and 26,7% passed Physical Science on the higher grade.

There had been some marginal increases in the quality of the 2006 matric
results though: 79 more learners sat Maths Higher Grade last year and of the 4
741 candidates who wrote Science on the Higher Grade,4 053 passed: this is 688
more learners than in 2005.

However, white candidates continue to exceed African and Coloured candidates
substantially and the location of success of even black candidates is in the
former model-C schools environment. These statistics raise serious questions
about how we deploy our resources and the progress of our policies.

I also want to share with you some key findings of the latest study of Grade
3 performances in the reading, writing and comprehension skills of our
learners, undertaken by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) in October
and November last year. The pass rate for Grade 3 learners in literacy has
improved from 39,5% in 2004 to 47,7% in 2006, an increase of 8,2%. This is an
improvement of 12,2% over the three testing periods. But whilst there has been
a significant improvement in the levels of literacy, the findings show our
children are still struggling with mathematics. The results of the numeracy
study reflects a decline of 6,5% from 37,3% to 31% and we are not happy with
this. Out of a total of 82 879 learners at 1 086 schools, the overall
performance is not yet satisfactory, the improvement is encouraging, and shows
that special interventions to improve results can work. However, 47,7% is still
too low.

This research forms part of our strategy to improve literacy and numeracy in
our schools. The results are enabling us to identify challenges and ways in
which to meet these challenges. In the long term, we will only improve the
throughput rate in our schools if we build a solid foundation in literacy and
numeracy in primary schools.

Schools in poor areas continue to struggle, although there are many examples
of schools that have improved results, mainly in literacy. Some have improved
results in both literacy and numeracy. We are studying examples of success
closely, to find out what they did to improve results, despite poor
circumstances. These examples of improvement in schools in poor communities
indicate that effective teaching and learning depends not only on available
resources, but more importantly, also a great deal on school management and
leadership.

Our number one priority in education is to ensure that our learners can
read, write and calculate at levels required by the curriculum, especially in
primary school. If we can get this right, then the rest will largely take care
of itself. The WCED has therefore launched a major literacy and numeracy
strategy that seeks to build learner performance in these fields, focusing
essentially on the Foundation and Intermediate phases.

The strategy is based on six programmes, namely Teacher Support and
Development, Changes to classroom practice, Early Childhood Development,
Advocacy, Family and Community Learning, Research, Monitoring and Support and
Co-ordination and Sustainability.

The strategy has three co-dependent features, namely, support for
school-based teaching and learning, with special attention to the language of
teaching and learning support for family literacy and attention to various
critical success factors. Just in this week we have announced details of our
Language Transformation Plan. This plan will promote six years of
mother-tongue-based bilingual education and envisages that all learners in the
Western Cape will by the end of Grade 9 have some basic conversational
trilingualism.

Research has indicated clear evidence that learners need a minimum of six
years of tuition in their mother tongue in order to achieve enough language
skills to cope with the linguistic challenge of learning through the medium of
a second language. We have set up 16 project schools, which have
enthusiastically adopted this policy and which are already reporting obvious
changes in classroom behaviour. They report that the learners are far livelier
in class and their academic performance is improving. Evaluators have also
noted not just an increase in learner self-esteem, but also an increase in
educator self-esteem.

All eyes will be on these schools later in the year when they will write,
for the first time, the WCED Grade 6 Assessment Tests in isiXhosa. Schools are
reportedly looking forward to improved scores on the Numeracy tests and to
demonstrating that their problem has not been with Numeracy as such, but with
the language of assessment.

Another outstanding feature of our Literacy-Numeracy Strategy is the
employment of 510 Teaching Assistants at 160 schools, to help improve the
reading and mathematics skills of children in the Foundation Phase. Due to its
initial reports indicating that the Teaching Assistants were making a
difference, the department decided to continue with the project. Taking into
consideration that the piloting was only from March to November last year, the
intervention period was too short to see a huge increase in the literacy and
numeracy levels in the 2006 Grade 3 assessment results.

Criteria for allocating TAs included schools in disadvantage areas in nodal
development zones, schools generally in poor areas, under-performance in
literacy and numeracy, schools where learners are not learning in their home
languages and schools that actively help learners with learning difficulties.
So successful and popular has the Teaching Assistant project been, that
National has now included it formally included it in the overall career path of
the teaching profession. I believe this was an exciting project, and we have
learned about how best to provide support where it is needed most.

Some other interventions to increase our mathematical intellectual capital
include expanding the number of Dinaledi schools to 45, and we are now even
planning to increase this number again. The Dinaledi schools form part of a
national programme to improve the performance of high school learners in poor
communities in maths, science and technology, and have as its primary focus
areas the development of teachers, learner support and the provision of
resources.

In addition to the national Dinaledi schools initiative, we in the province
have also established eight Focus Schools, specialising in Maths, Science and
Technology (MST), to further improve access to these subjects for learners from
poor communities with aptitudes in these fields. Besides the establishment of
focus and special schools, the WCED has also been actively promoting
Mathematics in both primary and secondary schools by annually having a
Mathematics focus week. Schools are encouraged to plan activities to celebrate
Mathematics Week.

Primary and High schools are involved in activities such as:

* Mathematics games afternoons
* Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa (AMESA) provides a *
Mathematics Challenge for Grade 4 to 7 and Soduku Competitions
* Mathematics model building
* Mathematics Quizzes and Olympiads, etc.

Dinaledi and MST schools are given special support and encouraged to
participate in Mathematics Olympiads organised by University of Cape Town
(UCT). Learners in these schools are further supported by extending them the
opportunity to participate in extra Mathematics tuition over weekends, winter
and spring schools. Special projects are co-ordinated within Dinaledi schools
to ensure greater participation and success in mathematics, such as the
Mathematics Tutorial Programme that supports underachieving and "at risk"
learners.

The Numeracy Consolidation Project focuses on GET and is aimed at ensuring
that learners entering high schools are properly prepared for high schools
mathematics. The programme is based on a thorough baseline assessment of
learners and a strategy to ensure that learners possess the mathematical
concepts and skills that are required. Many learners have a fear of
Mathematics, hence a project aimed at addressing the Mathematics phobia within
young primary learners.

In addition to the Dinaledi and MST Focus Schools, there are also schools
that form part of our general focus school programme, with 28 focus schools
altogether the other focus areas being engineering and technology, Arts and
Culture and Business, Commerce and Management (BCM).

We have been, and continue to provide mathematics, science and technology
kits, supported by teaching materials and lesson plans for teachers across all
the grades in all our schools. The WCED has increased the number of bursaries
for student teachers progressively in recent years to 96 this year, for those
intending to teach mathematics and science.

More than 100 schools are participating in the WCED's Khanya's Maths Schools
Project, which is using technology to support teaching and learning in
mathematics. Two interventions, which we are particularly proud of, are the two
special schools, focusing on mathematics, science and technology, mainly for
learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.

They are the Centre of Science and Technology (COSAT) in Khayelitsha and the
Cape Academy of Mathematics, Science and Technology in Constantia. Both
achieved excellent matric results in 2006. Our Cape Academy's first cohort of
matrics (of 2006) has produced no less than eight students from historically
disadvantaged backgrounds, who have enrolled as chartered accountants or in
other financial services related courses, of which one, in fact just this
morning, has left to study financial mathematics at the Wesley College in the
United States of America.

Our efforts at improving learner performance in maths, science and
technology have taken on an even greater sense of urgency now that maths is a
compulsory subject in both General Education and Training (GET) and Further
Education and Training (FET) in schools. We have also made maths a key element
of our new programmes in FET colleges.

The implementation of the National Curriculum Statement in the Foundation
Phase in 1997 has seen the introduction of a new Learning Area, namely Economic
and Management Sciences (EMS), with the main focus on entrepreneurial knowledge
skills, but also management, including financial skills, which all learners in
the GET phase do.

A practical, hands-on approach in establishing an elementary Entrepreneurial
Literacy in the foundation phase focuses on instilling an entrepreneurial
spirit, attitudes and abilities and the practical, very basic implementation of
entrepreneurship in the local environment, and the development of personal
entrepreneurial habits and talents. This culminates in the Foundation phase
(Grade 3) when the learners apply their different entrepreneurial, financial
and management functions in the context of a classroom business.

Market days in the primary school, for example, include selling of home-made
products, products made from recycled materials, staging of art and music
performances have now become an integral part of all primary schools. In the
Intermediate phase the curriculum focuses, amongst others on the management of
classroom projects, the management of production and basic consumer and
financial skills.

At the senior phase level (Grade 7 to 9) the curriculum further develops the
focus on Entrepreneurship within learners regarding the role of the
entrepreneur, market research and feasibility studies, including financial
feasibility, before starting a business. At this stage experience has shown
that quite number learners have started their own, viable businesses, and are
keen to participate at the regular school Market days held at most schools.

The WCED has provided Entrepreneurship Learner workbooks and teacher guides
to all the EMS teachers schools, providing hands-on step by step guidance ("My
Business") and practical opportunities to be able to do creative market
research, idea generation, strength, weakness, Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis, an the writing of business plans for
them to start feasible businesses, individually or collaboratively.

At the FET level (Grade 10 to 12) the subject formerly known as Business
Economics has been transformed in the new subject Business Studies, and
implemented as part of the NCS in Grade 10 in 2006 and currently implemented in
Grade 11. This subject is 75% new and is being experienced as totally enjoyable
and useful by the new cohort of learners.

Entrepreneurship is the sole focus of this new subject, which aims to ensure
that learners:

* acquire an apply essential business knowledge, skills and principles to
productively and profitably conduct business in changing business environments*
create business opportunities, creatively solve problems and take risks,
respecting the rights of others and environmental sustainability
* apply basic leadership and management skills and principles while working
with others to accomplish business goals
* be committed to developing themselves and others through creating real
business opportunities and ventures.

A number of partnerships have been forged between the National Department of
Education, the WCED and business institutions to provide exciting competitions
for learners to exhibit their business plans and business ventures. For
example, the annual WCED/Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce Technopreneur
competition has already provided the springboard for new innovations of
learners to put them on the road of financial independence.

Similarly there are many other joint initiatives with Santam, the City of
Cape Town, Department of Economic Development and Tourism, Afrikaanse Handels
Instituut and many other partners. Schools are also rewarded for excellent
performance in Senior Certificate Exams for Mathematics. Schools such COSAT and
Cape Academy have benefited tremendously from these and other interventions
which enabled them to maintain Mathematics High Grade pass rates of well over
75 %. Overall promotion of Mathematics in the province takes the form of annual
conferences held with the specific aim of promoting effective teaching of
Mathematics.

In the last number of years the Western Cape has consistently been
performing well in its matric results, achieving above the national average.
However, it has masked some of the deep-seated skewed outcomes as seen by the
maths, science and accountancy results of black learners that I have
illustrated earlier.

We can and must do better. I have therefore insisted on schools setting
targets for 2007. Schools had to define the targeted outcomes, and then conduct
the steps needed to convert these targets into realities. It's no good setting
impossible targets, and it's no good setting targets that are window-dressing.
The targets are for overall pass rate, endorsements, increased maths and
science passes, reduced drop-out rate, as well as improved literacy and
numeracy performances. These targets have been formally signed off by the
school governing bodies, the Representative Councils of Learners (RCLs) and
principals.

With regards to the targets for Dinaledi and MST schools, the number of
Maths and Science HG passes between 2004 and 2006 has shown a trend that
translates into an increase of HG passes of between five percent and eight
percent.

Last year we enrolled a total of 894 maths higher grade matric learners in
our Dinaledi and MST Focus Schools alone, of which 585 passed. This year we
have enrolled 1 055 higher grade matric learners and we project a pass rate of
757, which represents an increase of 164 enrolments and a targeted increase of
172 passes. For Science we have enrolled 903 higher grade matric learners in
2006 compared to this year's 1 075, which is an increase of 172 learners.
Whereas last year we recorded 670 passes, our target for this year is 855,
which is 185 more learners.

Clearly these numbers are small, but not insignificant. They represent a
silent determination on the part of government to steadily ensure that the
intellectual and skills gap is increasingly narrowed. But the challenges in the
provisioning of education and skills are huge. As government and as a nation,
our response to this challenge has to include mobilising partnerships in
fighting poverty and creating work, which for us in the Western Cape is a key
component of our Human Capital Development Strategy.

Socially responsible corporate citizens and the commitment of business can
contribute enormously to sustainable social and economic development. The
involvement of business in education, training and skills development creates
opportunities for business to transfer and recruit skills. These networks
provide a platform for business and government to talk and strategise
together.

I therefore want to conclude by issuing a challenge to each one of you on
two matters. One, I want to challenge you to adopt as many as possible of our
focus schools � either Dinaledi, Maths, Science and Technology (MST) or
Business, Commerce and Management (BMC) school. With this I want to formally
hand over to the President of the AABASA Minister Naledi Pandor's Framework for
Adoption of Dinaledi Schools by Private Donors. I believe by adopting and
networking with these focus schools, it can actually contribute to
fast-tracking talent into the industry.

Secondly, it was with surprise and pleasantly so that I have learnt that
Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu was the first black South African to qualify as a
Chartered Accountant in the country. Perhaps the AABASA can think of a bursary
fund named in his honour and dispense bursaries to students from historically
disadvantaged black communities who wish to further their careers in this
profession.

On that note I wish to thank you once again for the opportunity to interact
with you, thank you for your sustained commitment to the future generation of
professionals, I'm wishing you well in your deliberations over the next two
days and trust that this will be the most productive convention ever, which
will lead to more of our black children taking up the challenge of this
profession.

Thank you.

For enquiries contact:
Gert Witbooi
Media Liaison Officer
Tel: 021 467 2523
Fax: 021 425 5689
Cell: 082 550 3938
E-mail: gwitbooi@pgwc.gov.za.

Issued by: Department of Education, Western Cape Provincial Government
23 August 2007