The Gauteng Department of Education has increased funding for key intervention programmes to strengthen the provision of quality education.
The budget for 2012/13 financial year is R27.1-billion, a 2.7% increase over last year’s adjusted budget of R26.4-billion. While the bulk of the funds are on personnel expenditure, we have priorities funding from non-core areas to support the key elements of the five-year plan.
This budget is focused on achieving stability and improvement in the quality of education delivery.
1. Delivery of quality education
Universalising Grade R
We will continue with the commitment to universalise access to Grade R by 2014. This access will be realised through a network of private providers, community-based sites and Grade R in public schools.
A total of 3 156 practitioners will be trained during the year. The department will spend R529 million on Grade R of which R81, 4 million will used in resourcing new sites opening in 2013 with start-up kits and necessary resources. There are currently a total of 104 799 Grade R learners in the province. The department envisages registering a further 500 new sites to bring the total of learners to 110 000.
Improving Learning
A budget of R216,5 million has been set aside for the implementation and expansion of the Gauteng Primary Language and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS) in the Foundation Phase and intermediate and senior (Intersen) grades. This is the department’s new approach to teaching numeracy and literacy in the Foundation Phase and Intermediate phase.
In promoting a successful Transition from Primary to Secondary School the Secondary School Intervention Programme (SSIP) will be expanded to include Grades 8 and 9.
The 2012 Grades 8 and 9 SSIP programme will also focus on closing the level of backlog in learning in primary education to the extent that such impacts negatively on learning in high schools.
This catch-up programme focuses on remedial programmes at the beginning of the year followed by school-based support using centrally developed materials. The subjects included in the project are English, mathematics, science and business studies. During the school holidays, camps will be held in these subjects to consolidate the catch-up programmes and to support the new content.
We will also focus intensively on career counselling in Grades 8 and 9.
The Secondary School Intervention Programme in grades 10 – 12, continues this year.
The programme will be intensified and expanded from 391 underperforming schools to 431 schools performing to ensure that the Department achieves the 2012 target of an 81% pass rate in the province.
A budget of R106.3 million is allocated to the SSIP programme. This amount includes an amount allocated to teacher just-in-time training. The SSIP funding includes support for the Saturday programme to Grade 12 learners, the holiday programme will include grades 8, 9, 10 and 11 in selected underperforming subjects.
Expansion of inclusion - Full Service Schools
The Department is working hard at expanding access for learners with special needs through the implementation of the Inclusive Education Plan.
Full service schools are ordinary schools with special and remedial classes and with the capacity to deal with special needs of learners with mild disability or learning challenges such as dyslexia.
To support our on-going commitment to learners with special needs, we are allocating R1.47 billion in the 2012/13 financial year to Programme 4: Special Education In addition, the Department has allocated R39.9 million for the expansion of Inclusive Education in the province. This excludes the cost of refurbishment, which is included in the CAPEX budget.
Personnel and Teacher Development across all phases
Almost seventy-four percent (74%) of this budget will be spent on salaries for teachers, school administrative staff and office based personnel.
In support of the strategy for 2012/13, we have developed a training calendar for the period from January 2012 to March 2013.
Key Programmes for 2012 include amongst others:
- 125 teachers will be trained on Assessment for Learning during August 2012
- 439 Priority schools will receive training on classroom management and discipline in February 2013
- The training of 180 teachers to become lead teachers will take place in July 2012
- Training of teachers in 21 Special schools and 15 full service schools will take place during June 2012
- During 2012 the Department designed a month long full-time training programme to support the intensive re-skilling of maths and science teachers. The participating schools will receive highly qualified substitute or relief teachers to ensure that classes are not disrupted.
The province is currently spending R207 million on teacher development across all programmes including Grade R and Pre-grade R training. This excludes the cost of coaching which is included in the budget for the GPLMS intervention.
To further enhance management competency in schools, and in response to the competency assessments of 975 principals and deputies, we are implementing a principals’ development programme addressing the areas of weakness
2. Building departmental, district and school management and leadership
District Model
The new District Office model focuses on multi-disciplinary teams that work in school clusters and circuits. Ideally circuits will consist of a number of school clusters in close proximity to each other with a representative mix of dysfunctional and functional schools. The average size of a district is 141 institutions and is not to exceed 200 institutions.
We will establish approximately three to four circuits per districts with a maximum of 45 schools. Each circuit will have three to four clusters of 10-15 schools each. The multi-disciplinary teams will be trained over the next few weeks. The training will focus on using information and school visits to diagnose problems and designing solutions to provide integrated and sustainable solutions. Each district will initially focus on turning the ten most dysfunctional schools in the district.
The Department has reprioritised R90.1 million previously allocated for district-based professional support to fund the new district model. This allocation will focus on the multi-disciplinary teams that work in schools, clusters and circuits.
2012 SGB Elections and the SGB training strategy
We would like to thank all stakeholders for their support and assistance in achieving this successful election of SGBs for the term 2012-2015.
The new SGBs have been inducted and will receive immediate training to ensure that members carry out their roles and responsibility procedurally and through good governance. A budget of R23 million has been set aside for the training and capacity building of SGBs.
3. Creating a safe and stable learning environment
School Safety
In 2012/13, we will ensure that all our districts have linked priority schools with their local police stations in support of sector policing.
The SGBs at all priority schools have established and are maintaining safety committees and have formulated a school safety plans including emergency measures. In 2012/13, we will support the incoming SGBs to adopt and implement the school safety plans.
In supporting schools to implement preventative safety and security capacity, the Department has deployed patrollers to 1614 schools in the province to deal with safety and security matters. They provide security for the school on a 24-hour basis.
We have also developed dedicated capacity to provide psycho-social support to learners, teachers and parents when responding to incidences of violence, rape, gangsterism and fatalities from accidents at schools. The team has successfully intervened where there have been violations of the rights of learners over the last year. In 2012/13, we will increase the number of team members to support the work of the team.
The Department has partnered with the Department of Community Safety and the South African Police Services to conduct regular search and seizure operations at high-risk schools for weapons, drugs and other banned substances. In addition, the security sector will also assist in enforcing liquor regulations in taverns surrounding schools. Provincial traffic officers and Metro police will ensure regular inspection of Scholar Transport Vehicles.
A total of R122.7 million will be spent on school safety and will be used to pay the stipends of the school patrollers, provide psycho-social support and deal with other elements of the school safety strategy.
Diversity training in high schools
Currently, in response to issues related to racism and other forms of discrimination in schools, the department is implementing a values approach to better manage diversity and to foster respect. This is being done with the assistance of NGOs who specialise in values, reconciliation, and anti-discrimination. The role of the NGOs is to facilitate an understanding of the root causes contributing to different forms of discrimination.
Infrastructure
The 2012/13 allocations for new schools will focus on completing 5 new schools for the 2012/13 financial year and plan the construction of 14 other schools. It should be noted that in the last financial year, we opened 28 new schools. In total, we will spend R364 million on new schools.
In addition, we are building additional classes at existing schools and providing prefabricated classrooms to existing schools to meet the demand for education and reduce class sizes in the process. This will assist in supporting quality learning in schools. In total projects at 117 schools will be implemented at a cost R227 million. Last year the department procured a total of 252 prefabricated classrooms to deal with pressures in existing schools.
In support of the school safety plan of the department, we completed the construction of palisade fencing in a total of 540 priority schools. This year, there are 36 schools that will receive palisade fencing. The project will now target the fencing of high risk and priority schools.
Last year, a total of 85 schools were refurbished. This exceeds the target of 77 schools set for last year. During 2012/13, a total of 214 schools have been earmarked for rehabilitation and refurbishment. The refurbishment will include specialist rooms and laboratories. In total, we will spend R503 million on this component of our plan.
A total of R150 million is set aside to provide emergency repairs and maintenance at schools. Based on trends, it is estimated that 600 schools will request emergency repairs to deal with burst pipes, blocked toilets, and vandalism.
The 2012/13 Infrastructure Budget for the education sector in Gauteng is in excess R1.2 billion.
Last year, we announced a plan to eradicate the backlogs led by the Department of Finance, together with the Development Bank of South Africa. The plan is to build 71 new schools and renovate 274 schools in close proximity to the new schools being built. The programme is currently out on tender.
4. Equity and poverty alleviation
Most of our education resourcing policy, programmes and interventions are geared towards the elimination of or compensation for external factors that negatively affect a child’s education.
School Nutrition
During the 2012/13 financial, year, we will be expanding the school nutrition programme to cover all newly declared no fee schools. In total over 1,004 million learners are benefiting from this programme. The conditional grant allocation for this programme in 2012/13 is R 548, 7 million for this financial year.
Scholar Transport
A total of 56 793 learners are currently using the scholar transport system and are transported to 360 schools across the province. The Department has budgeted R165.3 million for scholar transport in both Primary and Secondary Schools.
No-fee schools
In 2012, a total of 164 (147 quintile 4 and 17 quintile 5) schools in quintiles voluntarily decided to become no-fee schools, bringing the total of no-fee schools to 1 237 in the province servicing a total of 1 019 010 learners. Thus, the target of 60% of learners are benefitting from the no-fee policy in the Province which will be consolidated in 2012 with 1,04 million learners benefiting from this policy.
Extra School Support Programme (ESSP)
Finally, I want table our actions to compensate for low family literacy and poverty and address the problem of the lack of parental involvement.
The Extra School Support Programme (ESSP) has been designed to provide after-school support for homework and school sports. The programme provides learners with caring and supporting individuals available beyond normal contact time. These caregivers assist with homework support programmes as homework supervisors for Grade 1 - 7 in no-fee schools. In addition, they facilitate sporting activities on Wednesdays.
A budget of R127 million is allocated for the Extra-School Support Programme to hire homework and school sports coordinators and general supervisors. In total the department is spending R276,5 million in various programmes to create jobs under the EPWP programme including training and development.
Parental Involvement/ family support programme
Learners’ academic achievement and behaviour are likely to improve when schools and families work together.
As part of the improved service delivery and educational support to learners and parents the Department has started and will expand the family support programme. A Parental/Family Guideline to schools was designed to assist parents in accessing and supporting services that the Department offers. A total of 88 596 parents/families in the province have attended Parent/Family Support Programme.
An amount of R40 million has been allocated to implement the family/parental involvement programme for the financial year.
5. Making the transition from school to further education and work
Transitions from school to work involves the intersection of three large complex and largely independent sectors, viz. schools, higher education and the labour market, with some role for other areas of social policy such as social assistance. The approach to equal opportunity or equity for learners in no-fee schools in respect of transition is complicated because the roles of the sectors intersect and interact in ways that make it difficult to be sure of where the best impact points for effective policy are. All young people participate in transitions in some way or other, with greater or lesser efficacy.
To guide the work of the Province on improving the rate of transition to employment or higher education, the Province adopted the Master Skills Programme. The Master skills plan is structured under 4 pillars which look at strengthening career counselling capacity, developing targeted interventions to respond to skills needs in the province, enable economic growth through education and skills development, and partnering with key sector organisations to respond to skills priorities of the province.
We will continue to run the learnership and internship programmes.
There are three important interventions linked to our turnaround strategy in schools.
Firstly, we will ensure that all grade 8 and 9 learners in underperforming schools receive career guidance and counselling. This pillar will focus on the training of 431 Grade 8 and 9 Life Orientation teachers to provide career counselling linked to subject choices. To support teachers and schools, we have deployed 300 lay counsellors to work with learners. We will also work towards guiding learners to adopt a vocational direction through advocacy and career booklets on Technical High Schools and FET Colleges. In addition, we will develop parent guidelines to support them in the career choices and pathways in the underperforming schools.
Secondly, we have been allocating bursaries for further studies to the top three learners in all no fee and special schools in the province. Further bursaries will be made available to post-matric learners that have an interest in becoming artisans with technical qualifications in line with the priority skills areas in the province. In total, over 3000 learners in no-fee schools will qualify for a bursary to study further. Currently, in excess of 1500 bursaries have been awarded to last year’s matriculants.
Thirdly, during 2012/13, we will continue with the recapitalisation of 41 Technical High Schools. We will focus on the 431 secondary schools and we will implement programmes focusing on teacher training, mentoring and coaching, resourcing, assessment and evaluation.
The department allocated R211.4m on all the programmes of the Master Skills Plan and the department received a conditional grant of R25 million for Technical High schools.
Enquiries:
Charles Phahlane
Tel: 011 355 1530
Cell: 071 860 4496
