The Council of Education Ministers (CEM) held the final meeting of the year on 11 December 2009 in Pretoria. The meeting discussed a wide range of education related issues.
CEM extended its good wishes to all principals, teachers, learners and officials and wished all education role players a well deserved, peaceful and safe holiday period. CEM also took the opportunity to remind teachers and learners that schools will open for principals and teachers on Monday 11 January 2010 and for learners on Wednesday, 13 January 2010.
Council paid tribute to the late activist, educationist and struggle icon Curtis Nkondo and sent its condolences to his wife, Rose, and their children. CEM agreed to cancel all provincial functions and parties in 2010 not related to the core business of learning and teaching. The savings obtained will be spent on resourcing district offices and the provision of learning and teaching support materials to schools.
CEM expressed its satisfaction at the successful completion of the writing of the 2009 national senior certificate examinations on 4 December 2009. The marking process is now underway and will be completed in all provinces by 18 December 2009. The Minister of Basic Education will announce the results at the Union Buildings on 7 January 2010 at 07h00. Learners are encouraged to collect their results from their schools on the morning of 7 January 2010.
Further, CEM agreed as follows:
Continuous tasks of assessment
Council agreed that continuous tasks of assessment for grade nines be discontinued in 2010 and be replaced with national assessment tests in mathematics and the language of learning and teaching. School based assessment processes will be strengthened in 2010.
A national campaign for HIV testing
CEM agreed that a large scale programme will be initiated in 2010 to encourage all officials and teachers in the education sector to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counselling.
Workbook tender
Council supported the decision of the Ministry of Basic Education to withdraw tender EDO 400 and to institute a new process to deliver workbooks to schools to ensure that quality assurance processes are not compromised. CEM stressed that these workbooks were additional resources that would have been provided by the national department to specifically target the improvement of literacy and numeracy in grades one to six.
Provinces have the budgets to provide textbooks and stationery to learners and council received reports from provinces indicating that the delivery of support materials to schools was at an advanced stage in all provinces. The Ministry remains committed to ensuring that grades one to six receive high quality workbooks in 2010. The department is continuing to distribute grade R learning and teaching support packs to be in all schools by the start of the new school year.
The review of the quintile system
The quintile system has often been criticised for failing to meet its intended objectives of ensuring that public funding is skewed in favour of our poorest learners. Other concerns were around the different ranking of schools that share the same socio-economic characteristics, which then result in funding levels that do not reflect the policy intentions. CEM approved the review of the quintile system and the ultimate phasing out of the use of quintiles in relation to no fee schools for purposes of allocating funding.
Enquiries:
Hope Mokgatlhe
Cell: 071 680 6849
Issued by: Department of Basic Education
11 December 2009
Source: Department of Education (http://www.education.gov.za/)
