Mlambo-Ngcuka at the Most Improved Schools Awards, Presidential Guest
House
5 April 2006
Minister of Education, Ms Naledi Pandor,
Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Enver Surty,
MECs present,
Sponsors,
Award winners,
Principals,
Members of the School Governing Bodies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
I am honoured to be part of an awards ceremony of schools that are making an
important contribution to the human resource base of the country.
As a former educator, I have always had deep respect for the role played by
education in sustainable empowerment of individuals and communities. Education
has a decisive role in the success of the Accelerated and Shared Growth
Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), and bringing about of growth to a minimum
of 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2014 and halving poverty and
unemployment.
When we launched the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition
(JIPSA) a week ago we emphasised the importance of education, when we said "the
most fatal constraint to shared growth is skills! And it should be noted that
skills are not just one of the constraints facing AsgiSA but a potentially
fatal constraint!", thus drawing a clear relationship between skills and
education.
The improvement of quality of education especially in poor communities where
teachers and the schools has to compensate for inadequate role by parents who
have too many challenges and limitations is critical. The school becomes the
one and only support institution. We therefore know and understand the burden
and extra responsibility faced by the teachers here today.
When we define the scarce and priority skills needed for sustainability of
AsgiSA, we include educators such as yourselves, I mean we have to support the
Department of Education (DoE) in all their endeavours, to assist teachers and
we must have targets by when we must reach out.
In AsgiSA we have put in place JIPSA, for JIPSA to work through and with the
Department of Education.
There is a close correlation between JIPSA and the role of education, the
following working areas for JIPSA with a particular reference to education were
identified:
* High-level, world-class engineering and planning skills for the 'network
industries' - transport, communications and energy - all at the core of our
infrastructure programme;
* City, urban and regional planning and engineering skills - desperately
needed by our municipalities;
* Artisan and technical skills, with priority attention to those needs for
infrastructure development;
* Management and planning skills in education, health and in
municipalities;
* Teacher training for mathematics, science, Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) and language competence in public education;
* Specific skills needed by the Priority AsgiSA, sectors starting with
Tourism and Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) and cross-cutting skills
needed by all sectors especially finance; project managers and managers in
general;
* Skills relevant to local economic development needs of municipalities,
especially developmental economists.
Some of you may be surprised that the work of primary and high schools
features so prominently in AsgiSA. But if we were to concentrate only on
immediate alleviation of priority skills, South Africa would be in an eternal
skills crisis.
I am proud to say that we have identified a number of school level
initiatives in AsgiSA to ensure that we lay the basis for the high-level
knowledge and skills necessary for growth and prosperity for all. The three
projects are:
* The Quality Improvement Development, Support and Upliftment Project
(QIDS-UP), which seeks to ensure that all primary schools have the basic
requirements for quality education especially books and libraries -essential
for developing reading skills.
* We strongly support the Career Guidance Programme developed for grade nine
learners. This is an initiative of Higher Education South Africa and the
Department of Education aimed at ensuring that young learners know early in
their academic lives that they need to work hard, develop the necessary skills
and exercise the best choices in order to increase their learning and earning
opportunities. This is especially important for poor learners and schools that
have traditionally not had career guidance teachers.
* We strongly support the Dinaledi Project, which aims to double the number
of mathematics graduates from grade 12 by 2008. In 2005 there were 26 000
higher grade mathematics graduates. This project aims to accelerate the number
passing to 50 000 in the next three years. This project was noted in the
President's state of the national address earlier this year and I am delighted
to meet and celebrate the achievements of 12 of the 400 schools tonight.
Minister Pandor has already alluded to the important role played by the 16
June 1976 student's uprising in ensuring today's generation receive quality
education under free and democratic conditions. I am sure that you will agree
with me that I am not sentimental or romanticising our past when I say that "If
it was not for 16 June 1976, we wouldn't be where we are today".
For that and many other reasons this year on June 16 we will unveil our
Enhanced National Youth Service, which will give opportunity to out-of school
youth and graduates to acquire skills, to service communities and also acquire
skills to be a good member of the society. We will re-dedicate to those young
people who gave their lives for freedom.
Those who lost their lives on June 16 must be celebrating tonight wherever
they may be - and raising a fist in tribute and support of the schools that
have given life to their aspirations and struggles.
Language and quality were the issues of the 1976 uprisings and so it is
appropriate that 30 years on we celebrate schools that are promoting and
expanding quality education and the languages of South Africa.
These languages include Afrikaans an important and vibrant language of South
Africa. Afrikaans today, is bound to play an important role in JIPSA, as
Afrikaans speakers can easily master some of the international languages that
offer us with a possibility of running effective Call Centres.
For an example the Netherlands and Belgium are earmarked to use young people
with Afrikaans competency because of the closeness of Afrikaans to Dutch and
Belgian dialects.
Minister Pandor, I am also impressed by the range of schools from across the
country who have achieved success. There are, I believe two schools from
Tshwane - here on our doorstep. There are schools from big cities. There are
schools located in leafy suburbs and schools from sprawling townships. There
are schools that are located in remote rural areas and quiet villages. There
are legendary schools such as Mbilwi High School from Thohoyandou and
Livingstone High in Landsdowne Road that have for decades produced hundreds of
high quality learners and then there are schools that we have not heard of
until tonight.
All of them in their own way and with their own ethos and values provide
valuable and life changing opportunities to those lucky enough to attend them.
One of these wonderful schools produced 64 higher grade Maths learners in 2005
and 26 of these obtained A symbols.
At one school from KwaZulu-Natal a whopping 276 learners passed grade 12 in
2005 and at another in Gauteng 260 learners passed. The school that produced
the highest number of endorsement candidates in 2005 is in Limpopo and 184
learners achieved this quality pass.
I want to pay two special tributes tonight. I salute and thank sponsors for
restoring hope and dignity of these young people and thank sponsors for their
generosity. The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative has partnerships at
its core.
Government cannot on its own accelerate growth and nor is it only
government's responsibility. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders in
the economy to promote and support shared growth. In fact it is in the
interests of all social partners that there is shared growth. And so I am
delighted tonight to see the private sector supporting and providing incentives
for increased and improved performance in schools.
All the sponsors here tonight are known not only for their financial support
of education but their willingness to be real and long-term partners in the
education of our people. Through this we make the sharing in AsgiSA a reality
as education can be shared with all our people and those who need it most.
I wish to single out the particular contribution of Anglo American. The
Anglo American Chairman's Fund and the subsequent funds that have emerged from
that fund have a long and proud history of support for education.
Here the publishers and Publishers' Association of South Africa (PASA) play
can and do play an essential role in ensuring that high quality affordable
materials reach the children of South Africa. The partnership between education
and PASA must ensure this for sustainable and high-level skills development. My
second tribute goes to those who are the teachers who day in and day out work
to provide learners with the knowledge and skills to excel and access bright
futures. I am often reminded of the important and selfless role of teachers
when colleagues and celebrities interviewed on radio and television pay tribute
to teachers as their role models.
Last Monday at the launch of the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills
Acquisition I indicated that we would be concentrating on the recruitment and
training of teachers. To the provincial MECs, education officials, principals
and governors here tonight please pass on government's congratulations on their
successes.
The Awards we present tonight are a small token of our appreciation for the
work of teachers and principals. They allow us to congratulate, affirm,
recognise, and say Thank You for a job well done. I look forward to meeting the
winners later this evening. It will be an honour to congratulate you on your
achievements and spur you on to even greater heights.
I thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
5 April 2006
Source: SAPA
