Programme Director,
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
It feels good to be here precisely because Nedbank Group lives its values. Beyond compliance, the gesture of assembling your key education stakeholders testifies to the truth behind the data you place out for public scrutiny.
In the 2008 Sustainability and Transformation Report, Nedbank makes a very critical statement on the centrality of mutual partnerships. Using high business jargon, obviously for a business context, it articulates what we mean as government when we say simply, ‘together we can do more’ to create a better life for all.
The Nedbank report says, under the section on stakeholder engagements, that: “Nedbank Group recognises that to appropriately identify business opportunities and to effectively manage risks while remaining relevant to the markets and the society within which we operate, depend on constructive engagements with all our stakeholders.”
In the same report, in the language of investors, you proceeded to list government second only to shareholders and analysts. Under reasons for interaction, you stated, among other things, to build and strengthen relationships with government as a partner in the development of the country.
Further, I noted with interest that after government and regulatory bodies, Nedbank Group brought in local communities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The reason was to create partnerships that will best facilitate Nedbank’s corporate social investment activities and obtain input from communities and representative NGOs regarding key focus areas.
Beyond the brilliant and most pleasing-to-the-eye décor of the Nedbank Education Stakeholder breakfast, I see inscribed in bold, the words, ‘a bank for all, true to its word’. I therefore thank you, unreservedly, on behalf of Basic Education for hosting and affording us, as your valued partners, the honour to be part of the vital Nedbank Education Stakeholder breakfast.
As government, we’re alive to the value of mutual partnerships and their crucial role in tackling, head-on, herculean challenges of improving quality of learning and teaching in our schools.
Equally, we’re quite appreciative of the reality that this is not a battle we can win on our own.
We’ve prioritised the role of society and duly committed to effectively making education a societal issue. For, indeed it is.
In the Delivery Agreement for Basic Education which we entered into as a sector, in October 2010, we said categorically, and in keeping with international experience, that for us to develop quality in education: “There must be a sufficient degree of agreement and commitment among the various stakeholders. Plans must be widely consulted and all stakeholders should be involved…
“The 2009 Medium Term Strategic Framework refers to the need for a social contract between government, teacher unions, teacher training institutions, parents, School Governing Body organisations, business and civil society organs.”
Partnerships in this regard, as Nedbank Group has clearly demonstrated both in its reporting mechanisms and in its operations, are very crucial.
Enhancing educational quality in the sense of improving learning outcomes stands out as our greatest challenge. There’s no denial here. We’ve acknowledged it in the Delivery Agreement. It should be our rallying point.
Without substantial improvement in learning outcomes, the future development of the country will be seriously impaired. Providing quality education is in actual fact a precondition for delivering effectively on the goals of South Africa’s New Growth Path.
It is in this spirit, as you will recall, that in November 2010, our department hosted a breakfast with business that was graced by the presence of the Deputy President, representatives of industry and key education stakeholders. That interaction was intended expressly to give impetus to our “constructive engagements” with partners in the field of education.
We wanted, just as Nedbank Group strives to do as part of its outreach programme, to appropriately identify opportunities better to strengthen our core business, which is learning and teaching.
Most importantly, the overriding goal was to find strategic ways of redirecting all efforts and pooling resources around top priorities as identified by the ruling party and endorsed by a strong electoral mandate.
Allow me to restate the critical areas we proposed at the time for adoption by Corporate South Africa in line with their various business strategies, and as a mechanism efficiently to pool resources at our disposal. Doing so, will help me directly to respond to one of the areas I’ve been asked to address, that is, “government priorities to developing quality education”.
We identified the following as key areas of challenge calling for constructive engagement between government, the corporate sector and the whole of civil society.
These priority areas, we believe, if properly addressed, will help in improving educational quality in schools:
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Infrastructure provisioning;
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Provision of adequate furniture for all learners;
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Provision of Learning and Teaching Support Materials;
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Health and safety of learners through, inter alia, an adequate school nutrition programme and recreational facilities;
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Teacher development; and
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Scaling up interest and performance in math and science.
Our collective challenge is to find effective strategies for promoting science and technology for all.
Actions we need as a matter of urgency, as part of our key outputs, include high-quality teaching and learning, improved literacy and numeracy skills, broadening access to quality early childhood development and achieving equity in educational provision.
Nedbank Group has come to the party. The Nedbank Foundation has already committed to support our learners by way of matric revision programmes. Already, our officials have begun work with the Nedbank Foundation to ensure successful implementation.
We welcome Nedbank Foundation’s support by means of 7000 workbooks for Grade eight and nine learners, mainly in rural communities.
In fact, in the last five years, Nedbank Group has spent in excess of R50 million in education-related projects.
This is the best way of showing a strong commitment to education and making sure that every child enjoys the right to quality education, in every school, in every part of the country, rural or urban.
Part of the task of Basic Education is to mobilise South Africans to support and create strategic and sustainable partnerships that must and will assist in this mammoth task of improving quality.
The Nedbank Education Stakeholder breakfast has helped us discharge this responsibility, by bringing under one roof, major stakeholders in education, together to chart a way-forward on collective ways and means of turning around schooling in South Africa. And this effort, we truly embrace.
Notwithstanding current gains and inroads, there remains still a need for us to do more together to improve quality of education. Public - Private Partnerships will help in delivering on our country’s apex priority – an improved quality of basic education.
As government, we have made huge strides in laying the foundation for an improved quality of basic education well aware that the success of our country necessarily depends on it. We’ve developed Action Plan to 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025 – which is a blueprint for change. Central to the success of this plan is meaningful and strategic partnerships.
As part of curriculum reform, we have completed the review of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) and will phase them in the Foundation Phase in 2012. We therefore expect that there will be much more focused teaching and assessment. In April 2011, we launched the Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development. It is key to improving teacher capacity and practices.
As you know, we released results of Annual National Assessments (ANA), on 28 June 2011. The ANA was administered in February 2011 to about six million learners, to test literacy and numeracy skills. The results posed a serious challenge for us. They confirmed international tests on low performance of learners in South Africa.
We will use these results to identify areas requiring immediate action and to devise appropriate intervention strategies.
We have placed increasing emphasis on the importance of Early Childhood Development and Grade R for learners. We’re working towards universal access to Grade R by 2014.
This area has been one of our great successes, with access expanding dramatically in the recent past. Between 2007 and 2010 there was an increase in the number of schools offering Grade R, from 12 480 to 16 020 schools. The number of learners in Grade R rose from 487 222 to 707 203.
In the near future, we will call for support of our partners to enhance the work of a Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit that we’re putting in place to fast-track implementation and improve delivery.
This I must emphasise. Raising levels of literacy, numeracy and reading skills constitutes a decisive site for joint action. A 2009 report of the Economist Intelligence Unit on the role of the private sector in education highlighted the rationale for collective effort and concluded that: “It is in everyone’s interest that the standard of education is high. Better education will lead to better workers and a more productive society from which everyone reaps the benefits.”
Lastly, in the year 2031, when you celebrate 200 Years of the bank, a long history dating back to 1831, when the Cape of Good Hope Bank was established, you should be able to say, indeed we took South African education and the development of her children to greater heights.
As a ‘take-home’, each child matters. Government cannot do it alone. Meeting the challenges of education for the 21st Century calls for mutual partnerships and “constructive engagements”. Working together we can do more to create “business opportunities” for all. By strengthening the social contract on quality education we can and will improve South Africa’s global competitiveness while ensuring sustainability for all.
I thank you.
Source: Department of Basic Education
