The Eastern Cape Education department has once again received a large chunk of the total budget of the province. Tabling his R48.2 billion budget, Finance MEC Mcebisi Jonas allocated the Education Department R22, 680 billion.
“We intend to enhance the quality of education and skills development, focusing on improving foundation phase literacy and numeracy and on increasing the number of learners passing grade 12 mathematics and science,” Jonas said.
“We will build the skills and human resource base of the province. To do this teacher training must be improved, in support of which the budget for professional development of educators is increased,” MEC added.
The Scholar Transport programme will be intensified, the School Nutrition programme maintained, no-fee schooling extended facilities and infrastructure improved, and learner and teacher support materials enhanced. We undertake to improve school safety and security and expand our Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme.
“Through our Provincial Strategic Skills programme we are building partnerships for skills development across all targeted growth sectors. It should be noted that the budget for Further Education and Training (FET) colleges has been shifted from provinces to the national department.
“Our main challenge in implementing these key priorities is not so much budgetary constraint, but the sheer scale of our educational establishment. The 12 Provincial Department of Education employs about 87 000 people, a mammoth undertaking,” Jonas said.
Please download the full version of the budget speech on: http://www.ectreasury.gov.za/publish/BudgetSpeech2010.pdf.
Source: Department of Education, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
