Improved education
One of the worst injustices of apartheid was the manner in which education was used as a tool to perpetuate inequality. Over the last 30 years, government has sought to use education as a tool to create equality.
Basic education outcomes are steadily improving across a range of measures. The latest matric pass rate, at 82.9%, is the highest ever.
And with each New Year, learners from no-fee schools are accounting for more and more of the bachelor passes achieved. At the same time, fewer learners are dropping out of school.
Government has increased funding for poor and working-class students in universities and TVET significantly over the past five years. Over the next five years, government will focus its attention on expanding access to Early Childhood Development (ECD) and improving early grade reading, where we are already beginning to see progress.
Moving ECD to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) was one of the most important decisions as we were now able to devote more resources to ECD and ensure that through cooperative governance various departments of government get involved in ECD augmented by the DBE.
