Lucas, on the occasion of the tabling of 2006/07 Budget Vote
13 June 2006
Honouring the youth of â76 through quality public education
Madam Speaker and Deputy Speaker,
Honourable Premier,
Honourable members of the Executive Council,
Honourable members of the Provincial Legislature,
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Education and honourable
members,
Members of our School Governing Bodies, parents, principals, educators and
learners,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen:
Madam Speaker,
Within three days all South Africans will once again pay tribute and
commemorate the gallant heroes and heroines of the class of 1976. Therefore it
is of great significance that today three days before the commemoration of the
30th anniversary of 16 June, we are afforded the opportunity to table our
education budget vote for consideration by this august House.
It is both a humbling experience and at the same time a daunting task to be
assigned the responsibility of being the champion of education transformation
at such a historical epoch of the 30th anniversary of youth struggles for a
better quality public education.
The budget we are tabling here today, seeks to address the aspirations as
embodied by the 1976 class of revolutionaries who refused to succumb to
inferior Bantu education, designed to perpetuate racial discrimination.
Madam Speaker,
The education priorities for the 2006/07 financial year as agreed upon by the
Council of Education Ministers (CEM), continue to put key emphasis on the
following areas of importance:
* quality improvement and development strategy (QIDS-UP)
* recapitalisation of the further education and training (FET) sector
* mathematics, science and technology education provision through the Dinaledi
focus schools
* promoting access to education for all with the introduction of no fee
schools
* attending to the challenges of teacher development and education.
These are some of the priorities that we should continue to give detailed
focus and attention in our quest to build a quality public education system,
which addresses our social and economic challenges of the 21st century.
Our Department has in the main registered significant progress, despite
challenges that still remain. One such challenge is to ensure that conditions
of poverty never stand as a barrier to access a school and to receiving quality
education. It is this resolve that has seen the vigorous pursuit of no fee
schools this year.
Yet again ahead of national timelines we were able to identify 162 schools
from a total of 228 schools in quintiles one and two, which represent the
poorest of our schools. An initial amount of R37 million has been allocated and
these schools should therefore not levy fees from their learners.
This represents a government initiative aimed at increasing opportunities of
access to learning to the poorest of the poor by bringing much needed relief
for many families. We are aware though of schools that continue to refuse
parents their right to apply for exemption if they can genuinely not afford to
pay.
Another caution we must register is to indicate that this policy must be so
implemented and monitored that we do not allow these schools to become slum
schools where the quality of teaching and learning becomes secondary. If we
fail to prevent that the entire noble purpose of the no-fee school notion would
have been lost!
Madam Speaker,
It is our endeavour to build a quality public education system in which all our
people will have absolute confidence, faith and trust. Our quality improvement
and development strategy (QIDS-UP) emphasises the critical challenge of
appropriately resourcing our schools in order to provide seamless education to
all our children.
It is within this context that over the next five years we plan to inject
sufficient resources into our previously disadvantaged schools by building
proper libraries, laboratories, adequate Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) infrastructure while focusing on school based educator
development.
We must undertake this bold step primarily because we have realised that
most of our under-performing schools lack the basic schooling infrastructure
and that that high schools producing poor matric results are surrounded by
poorly equipped and under-resourced primary schools.
Madam Speaker,
In giving effect to the honourable Premierâs instruction to decentralise the
responsibility for repairs and renovations to schools, we will transfer R10,
574 million to 28 schools for this purpose. These funds will be ring-fenced
within the school fund and its application will be subject to intense scrutiny
and monitoring. Schools will be obliged to report on its expenditure in their
audited annual financial statements. For straightforward and less complex
projects, schools will draw persons directly from the community for employment.
Our FET colleges will train these persons in various trades and entrepreneurial
skills accompanied by an accredited certification. The intended result is to
create a pool of skilled people who could go on to establish construction
companies in future. For the more complex projects, schools will use approved
procurement procedures to secure the services of a contractor who will be
compelled to employ local labour. All of these projects must comply with the
objectives of the Expanded Works Programme (EWP).
Linked to QIDS-UP is our programme on learner achievement (PLA). Honourable
colleagues, we all agree that the best starting point for any sustainable
development is the unlocking and development of the human potential. We have
therefore begun to introduce what we refer to as our flagship programme namely
the Program for Learner Achievement (PLA) as this is at the heart of the
Departmentâs core business.
Simply put this programme aims at developing the entire schooling system in
such a comprehensive fashion that we break the mindset that the grade 12,
matric, exit point is the one and only benchmark of importance. The focus is
now squarely on assuring that all learners from grades R to 12 achieve. The PLA
departs from the assumption that all learners can learn and therefore all
learners can achieve. The PLA will strive to ensure that achievement is by
design and not by default.
We can report that in order to make the PLA work 14 strategies and 38
activities are already underway with district and school improvement plans
already having been developed and for which R3, 170 million is available. These
will be complemented by:
* significantly increasing school visits by circuit offices
* developing targets for school functionality and learner achievement
* and by implementing the computerised system for tracking learner achievement
throughout the system.
We must significantly raise the standard of our services to schools and the
rest of our clients/customers. To this effect and delivering on our promise
made last year that tardy service delivery will disappear within 18 months, we
are now ready to publish our service standards by the end of July 2006.
Over the years we have consistently declared in this House and as our first
strategic objective that rural and farm schools are our top priority. We have
recorded a variety of gains such as a high per capita spending by ranking all
farm schools in quintile one, a favourable learner-educator ratio and an
extensive learner transport network. All of these and other gains have,
however, been uncoordinated and disparate, thereby minimising their impact on
the development of farm and rural schools.
We are now concluding a comprehensive, integrated and multi-faceted rural
schools strategy. The strategy recognises the agricultural sector as a key
driver of economic growth and development as defined in the Provincial Growth
and Development Strategy (PGDS). We must also ensure that our strategy is
firmly infused into the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) of all local
government structures.
It is our intention to strengthen rural and farm schools so that more
learners remain at these schools for as long as possible. This is our
contribution to stem the tide of rural de-population. The Department will
release this strategy within three months.
The strategy will be located within the PLA and therefore growth and
development targets for learner achievement, educator development and school
development will be made public. These targets and the concomitant
interventions will be established within eight broad themes and at least 37
areas for development including:
* development guidelines to build capacity, organise and manage multi graded
teaching
* cluster schools for development and support
* promote agricultural sciences
* improve infrastructure with a special focus on sanitation and water
* improve hostel and transport facilities.
The need for this strategy is brought into stark reality when one considers
the large number of rural schools in the Kgalagadi District. This strategy will
make our programme for learner achievement more relevant in this area and
provide a roadmap for development.
Madam Speaker,
Quality education also requires that we make decisive interventions in the area
of promoting language education. Our approach and intention is to create a
citizenry capable of communicating in different languages. Multi-lingualism can
be a catalyst in further entrenching our constitutional values of
non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy and a prosperous society.
We are as a matter of urgency concluding our language in education strategy.
This strategy recognises the fact that the necessary policy and legislative
framework is in place to guide us. The Constitution, Language in Education
Policy and National Curriculum Statements together provide a clear roadmap for
our strategy. The increased use of mother tongue instruction in the foundation
phase, creating opportunities for all official languages in the province to
occupy equal status as fundamentals in grades 10 to 12 and the rapid expansion
of all official languages in the province as learning areas in the GET and FET
bands form the basis of our strategy. The ultimate objective of this strategy
is to promote African and all indigenous languages.
We will embark on extensive consultation and advocacy of the strategy in the
third quarter of the 2006 academic year before we start the implementation
thereof in 2007. All the necessary resources will be harnessed to enable us to
ensure that parents support the use of mother tongue instruction in the
foundation phase. High schools will offer an African language in the FET band.
African languages will also be integrated in to the curriculum and indigenous
languages like the San and Nama languages will be further promoted.
It must be emphasised that the language in education strategy will pull
together existing initiatives into a coherent and integrated programme. An
example of a working initiative is the promotion of San and Nama languages
already started by the Department five years ago. In this regard 10 schools in
the Namaqua region are teaching Nama and !Xhun, while Khwedam is offered at
!XhunKwesa Combined schools. A !Xhun dictionary also available.
The profound message we want to communicate is that if possible all our
schools in 2007 should offer teaching of an African language.
Madam Speaker,
Social cohesion, promoting safety and fighting the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in
our schools is part of our initiative in building quality education within our
system.
Our curriculum seeks to nurture in our youth, values of social justice,
caring and patriotic individuals who are not driven by motives of greed and
selfishness.
It is therefore very encouraging to realise that already in our schools we
have learners who care, who have a profound sense of patriotism as demonstrated
by Lindiwe Khumalo of Paballelo High. She won R70, 000 and a computer in the
national childrenâs rights competition and decided to donate the computer to
Vredesvallei Primary (Riemvasmaak), a rural school which had no computer for
administration thus demonstrating the spirit of Ubuntu.
Madam Speaker,
Government as a whole has developed comprehensive programmes for our schools to
promote good behavioural values targeting our learners. These programmes range
from health promotion in schools to drug awareness through the Ke Moja campaign
and schools safety initiatives. Of notable excitement this year, is that
through our partnership with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture plans
are underway towards ensuring that Wednesdays become sports days. This we are
doing to promote physical activity for all learners in our schooling system.
R1, 2 million is available for this mass participation initiative.
At a recent meeting of the Council of Education Ministers (CEM), extensive
deliberation pertaining to the challenges regarding safety of our learners and
educators took place. Amongst the issues raised was the safety of our learners
during sporting and educational tours. Subsequently draft regulations have been
released for public comment.
Furthermore, the Deputy Minister of Education is leading a task team which
will be investigating other international best practices with regard to
promoting safety in schools. This might include random searching for dangerous
weapons and even drug testing.
We have also indicated that there is a need to consider appointing safety
officers at some of our schools, erecting proper fences with single entrances
having proper access control and building better working relationships with
local police stations.
Madam Speaker,
We wish to assure our people that our schools are not war zones, neither a
haven for gangsters or drug lords.
Promoting quality education also implies that we should deal with the
challenges of teenage pregnancy in our schools. We wish to indicate that our
message will continue to be one of abstinence and nothing else. We will not
distribute condoms in schools. Children must abstain!
Madam Speaker,
Teenage pregnancy must be tackled head-on. As a nation we might need to
consider strengthening our approach and mechanisms in dealing with this matter
while most girl children are not willing to report some cases as they are often
bribed with money, cell phones and other material benefits.
Teenage pregnancy undermines our governmentâs effort of affirming girl
learners in our education system.
Accordingly our programme on life skills, HIV/AIDS will continue to be
infused across al learning areas. We will also continue to spread our ABC
awareness programme supported by a conditional grant of R2,457 million.
Maybe the poem âLoud Silence, Outspoken Silenceâ composed by Kitso Lorato
Kitchin, a learner from Northern Cape High who is a finalist in the
international poet of the year competition must inspire our girl learners to
speak out against abuse and pregnancy. She will be presented with two awards in
July this year in Las Vegas.
Madam Speaker,
The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative Strategy for South Africa
(AsgiSA), emphasises the importance of developing requisite skills, capable of
making meaningful contributions to the growth prospects of our country.
Critical to it is the development of maths, science and technology in our
schools. Accordingly, the 14 Dinaledi schools will be receiving focused
attention and support. From next year all the grade 10 learners in these
schools will be compelled to take maths and science. Deviation will only be
entertained in exceptional cases like Sutherland High School which is the only
school in the area.
The maths, science and technology strategy and the Dinaledi schools in
particular must ensure that our learners are ready to take up the wealth of
opportunities to be generated by the astronomy projects being developed in our
province. The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) initiative together with
the planned Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and Karoo Array Telescope (KAT) will
place the Northern Cape at the cutting edge of astronomical sciences and make
us a world-leader in this field.
Currently we are in the process of bidding for the SKA which is an
investment of nine billion rand and construction of the Karoo Array Telescope
in the Carnarvon area. The KAT will be equal to the largest radio telescope in
operation in the southern hemisphere, namely the Parks Telescope in
Australia.
Three hundred million rand has been secured for the technological aspects of
the telescope but the provincial administration will be responsible for the
infrastructural requirements which include the construction of roads,
electrification, water connections etc. This in itself would secure employment
opportunities for a vast amount of our people.
Madam Speaker, we also humbly request the support of the house with regard
to ensuring a Radio Quiet Zone, in and around the core and surrounding sites of
the telescope.
We have a budget of R2, 178 million to execute this crucial science and
technology function.
We must also ensure that we will have the scientists, technicians and
artisans ready to participate and lead the projects. The mystical knowledge of
our universe must be discovered by learners from the Northern Cape.
Such a learner could very well be Henri Uys, who once again will be
departing to Mexico as part of the South African delegation to partake in the
international mathematics symposium or Nomathemba Mashope from Thabane High
School who won a science competition sponsored by De Beers and Eskom and will
represent our country in Spain, in July.
Furthermore, the CEM has agreed that each high school must have a
mathematics teacher. This will ensure that the right of each child to be
offered mathematics is guaranteed and accordingly, the choice will be that of
the learners and parents not to take advantage of this opportunity.
I must also use this occasion to convey my disappointment at some educators
and principals who discourage children from doing maths and science; to them I
say itâs immoral and unethical.
Madam Speaker,
Honourable members, our legal mandate and our programme for learner achievement
implore us as a Department of Education not only to provide schooling for all
learners of compulsory school-going age but we are also committed to ensuring
that each childâs chances of achieving is enhanced. This would be done by
ensuring that learners have access to high quality education programmes in the
years before they enter the formal schooling system. To this effect grade R and
the integrated Early Childhood Development (ECD) strategy are key priority
areas.
The ECD unit will spend R23,6 million to subsidise schools and community
based sites, train educators and practitioners and supply Learning and Teaching
Supporting Material (LTSM) to sites.
In addition to the above amount and in line with the Expanded Public Works
Program (EPWP), our ECD unit has developed an integrated ECD plan aimed at
providing a basic package of care and education services to young children from
birth to four years as outlined in the Northern Cape social sector plan. The
programme is delivered in collaboration with the Department of Social Services
and Population Development and the Department of Health and other sectors. An
allocation of R1 859 000 is available to implement this integrated plan.
Honourable members, to further increase access to public education for
persons previously denied this opportunity, Adult Basic Education and Training
(ABET) has been identified as another of the key areas in our efforts to enable
our people to develop their potential to the fullest and address the imbalances
of the past.
Twenty four million rand will amongst others, target 10 800 learners in ABET
levels one to four, support 1 300 ABET matric learners and train an additional
80 learners in short skills courses.
Madam Speaker, the pursuit of quality education is evident in everything we
do. Attaining quality through curriculum delivery is foremost in this quest.
This is correctly so because curriculum delivery speaks directly to the
cauldron of our business, the classroom where learners and teachers engage in a
critical encounter to construct knowledge.
Madam Speaker, curriculum is our core business and as such it is this area
where we must especially be measured in the extent to which we have honoured
the class of â76. We are firm in our belief that indeed we have!
Outcomes Based Education (OBE) remains the correct philosophical base that
informs the methodologies of teaching and the nature of learning equal to the
challenges of the 21st century and the demands of our democracy. The National
Curriculum Statements give effect to OBE and enables us to develop skills in
our learners that the class of â76 would be proud of.
The National Curriculum Statement aims at developing the following specific
skills in all learners which should adequately prepare them for the 21st
century; problem solving; critical thinking; formulating questions; searching
for relevant information; making informed judgements; inventing and creating;
analysing and presenting data. Social skills which include leading discussions,
persuasion, co-operation and teamwork and affective skills will also not be
neglected.
In preparation for implementation of the National Curriculum Statements in
grades eight, nine and 11 in 2007, all educators training will be completed by
September 2006 and will be supported by a budget of R10,8 million. A further
R37,5 million has been allocated for other curriculum activities. All
preparatory work including the development of training materials and the
training of trainers has already been concluded. We call on this House yet
again to continue to support our effort at overhauling our old curriculum with
a deserving replacement, which derives from our Constitution and our new
democratic order.
Madam Speaker,
Central to the development of our schools as places where effective learning
and teaching takes place is the need for us to strengthen the governance
structures in our schools. It is therefore our humble appeal that all our
parents should partake in the School Governing Bodies (SGB) elections currently
taking place within our schools. These structures of governance not only
enhance accountability and transparency but most importantly ensure that
quality learning and teaching does occur.
Immediately after the elections the Department will be undertaking an
extensive capacity-building programme. This is aimed at ensuring that our newly
elected members understand their roles and functions very well and will
minimise possible conflicts between SGBs and school management teams.
Madam Speaker,
Our programme for learner achievement re-affirms the realisation that our
educators provide the golden thread for learner achievement. Their influence
permeates throughout the learning and achievement process. As such, educator
development stands alongside school development and learner development as one
of the three pillars that upholds the PLA. By investing in teacher development
we believe we are best able to bring tribute to that great educator guiding the
class of â76 Professor T Kambule.
Our teacher development programme in partnership with the government of the
Netherlands, Absa and United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) is resulting in 671 educators being enrolled for various training
programmes. These programmes target under qualified educators maths and science
educators and they are offered by University of Western Cape (UWC), University
of the North West, Free State University in partnership with National Institute
for Higher Education (NIHE). An allocated budget of R2, 5 million supports this
endeavour.
Madam Speaker,
We have realised that the emerging shortage of educators in scarce skills must
be faced head-on. Starting in 2007 we will be providing full bursaries to 50
learners from our province to enrol for an education degree in scarce subjects
like maths, science, English, Xhosa, Tswana and Afrikaans at various Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs). After completion of their studies they will be
expected to return to the province to be deployed where the need is greatest.
R2,4 million will be spent on this programme in this year.
Madam Speaker,
This targeted recruitment programme seeks to nurture amongst the youth, passion
and dedication to the teaching profession as embodied by Mr S Mckenzie from
Roodepan Primary School, who obtained the second place in the Lifetime
Achievement category during the 2005 National Teaching Awards.
Madam Speaker,
During the Presidential Imbizo on Saturday in Poffader again our ordinary
people raised concerns that young people, post matric, have very little
opportunities to further gain meaningful skills to actively participate in the
economy. This again brought to us the stark reality that we need to move with
the necessary urgency in finalising our provincial Human Resource Development
(HRD) strategy.
This strategy will facilitate a coherent and integrated working arrangement
for all human capital development programmes in government and other
sectors.
At the very same imbizo, municipalities raised the challenge of their
inability to recruit skilled personnel in the fields of finance and
engineering. Our strategy should therefore provide solutions to the problems
facing some of our rural municipalities.
The strategy will also seek better ways of implementing and managing our
various learnership and internship programmes. It will reflect on the lessons
learnt and the interventions that must be made.
The strategy will also devise creative ways of retaining our skilled and
scarce personnel within the province without undermining our nationally set
policies on employment and incentives for our public service employees.
In line with the execution of the Executive Council (ExCo) mandate, the
Provincial Treasury allocated R1 122 000 towards the implementation of our HRD
strategy. This will allow us to implement capacity-building programmes as
identified by the provincial skills audit.
Madam Speaker, arguably the most significant development in the education
sector in the past decade is the emergence of the Further Education and
Training (FET) Colleges.
Our FET vocational curriculum has a crucial role to play in the alleviation
of poverty and must therefore be appropriately aligned to the Provincial Growth
and Development Strategy (PGDS), Accelerated and Shared Initiative for South
Africa (AsgiSA) and Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) in
order to improve our peoplesâ skills levels and increase their opportunities of
accessing sustainable jobs.
Thirteen new modern, high-level vocational programmes have been introduced
as a new curriculum for FET colleges and are aimed at addressing the
development and economic needs of the province. These programmes will be
implemented at level two in 2007. The programmes include electrical
infrastructure construction, civil engineering construction, engineering and
related design, manufacturing and assembly.
Our FET colleges have also signed agreements with Sector Education and
Training (SET) authorities to support learnership training programmes.
Our rural FET college will be boosted by our partnership with the Renova
Mining Company in the Kgalagadi District. An immediate benefit of this project
is the establishment of a skills training centre in Mothibistad. The rural FET
college will be used as the main service provider at this centre.
The total budget allocation for the FET sector amounts to R28 million with
an additional R10 million for the recapitalisation of the two FET colleges.
Madam Speaker
For the eighth consecutive year, the Northern Cape Education Department has
distinguished itself with the highly professional manner in which the entire
examination process was administered. We can all bear witness to the fact that
the 2005 examinations have once again been incident free, ensuring that the
integrity and quality of the examinations remains beyond reproach.
The fundamental objective is to ensure an equitable examination and
assessment system that would allow all learners who possess the same degree of
ability to receive the same result.
To this effect a total of R21 million has been allocated to
examinations.
Madam Speaker
Today we present a total budget of R1 644 424 000 (R1,6 billion) to this august
House for consideration, this budget together with the strategic plan we have
tabled must be used as a tool to hold us accountable on the tasks assigned.
We are fully conscious of the enormity of the tasks and challenges ahead of
us. We nonetheless remain resolved in confronting these enormous challenges
with the necessary vigour and determination it requires.
I can certainly assure members of this House and the people of our province,
that the education team of officials is a dedicated one with the clarity of
understanding that we cannot rest on our laurels whilst many of our children
are hungry, malnourished and their educational opportunities are limited.
Conclusion
A great deal of work lies ahead in terms of meeting the challenges
confronting us and ensuring that quality public education benefits all our
people.
We wish to call on members of this House and every member of the Department,
our parents, teachers and learners and other partners in education to join
hands in making sure that indeed we succeed in our efforts of creating a better
life for all our people.
Our vision is a shared vision; our task must therefore be a shared task.
We wish to thank the honourable Premier, colleagues in ExCo, members of the
education portfolio committee and members of the legislature for sharing our
vision and our task. My sincere thanks must also be extended to the Head of the
Department and his team for their continued commitment.
We take pleasure today, to table this budget, which will enable us to
continue with good stories of our ordinary people working hard for fundamental
change in our education system.
Ke a leboga! Dankie! Thank you!
Issued by:
Department of Education, Northern Cape Provincial Government
13 June 2006
Source: Northern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.northern-cape.gov.za/)
