Eastern Cape learners from six districts and two metros gathered for the Schools Speech Competition Provincial Finals held at the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature recently to debate the State of the Province Address (SoPA) delivered by the Premier of the Province Noxolo Kiviet on 17 February 2012.
The learners took their sits at the Provincial Legislature to debate serious issues affecting the province. Topics that were debated are as follows, Rural Development and Land Reform, Health Care, Crime and Corruption and Education. The students stated facts, gave solutions and quoted out the Premiers speech.
Learners came up with practical solutions for each topic:
Rural Development and Land Reform
- Put better infrastructure in place e.g. roads and eradication of mud structure
- Put better water systems in place
- Agriculture should be a compulsory subject at school
- Create programs for youth e.g. vegetable gardens at school.
Crime and Corruption
- Create more jobs
- Make punishment harsher
- Bring the death penalty back.
Health Care
- Recruit more healthcare practitioners
- Better monitoring of dispensing and administering of medicines
- Better patient care.
Education
- Better monitoring process of different programs e.g. School Nutrition Program (SNP) and Scholar Transport.
Addressing the learners, Eastern Cape Education MEC, Mandla Makupula said he was very impressed by the speeches. "We intend to ignore those we think are dependants (children), therefore we need to put more focus on the inputs given by them." Makupula said he intended to forward these inputs to the Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPL'S) for further discussion.
He assured the learners that there were already measures put in place for Rural Development, thus far they have drafted a Rural Development Bill "so we are moving forward". He concluded his address by saying that "this year is a year of action, let us work together to achieve this."
