Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe joined Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga and representatives from civil society and business for the launch of the National Education Collaboration Trust at the Presidential Guesthouse in Pretoria on Tuesday, 16 July 2013.
The NECT is envisaged in the Education Collaboration Framework, which was developed by a range of stakeholders in response to the National Development Plan, which takes forward Government’s commitment to prioritising education.
The ECF defines themes for collaboration between Government, through the Department of Basic Education, and civil society with the aim of improving human capacity; school management; district support; infrastructure and results-orientated mutual accountability between schools and communities.
“Today we launch the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) as the first practical embodiment of the National Development Plan. We are aware that grand plans are not going to change the lives of our people. It is implementation that matters the most,” said Minister Motshekga at the launch. “The NECT will bring together the key stakeholders in education to work together to address the many challenges we continue to confront in the basic education sector.”
The NECT, to be guided by the National Education Collaboration Framework, does not intend to usurp the primary role of government in education, which is to manage and administer the entire basic education system. Government remains responsible for the basic provisioning of the system. The NECT rather creates an interface to between government and civil society and aims to both influence and support the agenda for reform in education.
“As government we will also continue to provide overall stewardship of the sector. In this regard it is important to appreciate that government will continue to set and direct the reform agenda in basic education,” added Minister Motshekga.
Deputy President Motlanthe hailed the initiative as an historic collaboration which would take the take the vast resources invested in education by the private sector each year.
“Interventions by the private sector have demonstrated that even those learners who attend poorly resourced can achieve excellent results f provided with the requisite support,” said the Deputy President. “We appreciate the great financial and human resources contribution business makes to education and are encouraged that these programmes are being taken further through the launch of this framework to improve coordination.”
Sizwe Nxasana, one of the founding trustees of the NECT said that the framework was an opportunity for South Africans to come together to support the NDP and the Department’s Action Plan.
“We as labour, business, government, civil society and other stakeholders have to work together to realise the improvements in learning outcomes required by the NDP.”
