Programme Director,
The leadership and community of Libode,
MEC for Education, Mr Mandla Makhuphula,
District Director, Dr Nuku,
The Principal, teachers and learners of Welese,
Our officials,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Let me thank the community and leadership for making it possible for us to be here together to fulfil our mandate of building a better life for all our people. Our mandate we can fully discharge when we work with communities.
That’s why we say: Working together we can do more!
I’m very pleased to once again officiate at the opening of yet another school in this province, the Eastern Cape. We were last here in October 2012 on the occasion of the handing over of four schools to our communities as part of government’s drive to roll back the inherited evil of school infrastructure backlog and poor service to our people.
The Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative, that is a part of the National School Built programme, has delivered another 13 schools in the Eastern Cape alone. This goes to show that your government is bent on delivering a school where there was none before, a road where there was none before and water where there was none before.
Together we can build a better country where each child and each citizen has a role to play. We must reverse the untenable situation noted in the 2007 community survey from Stats SA, that said there were 2.8 million young people not in education and not in employment.
We are hard at work to undo this damage because we are a government that works, a government that cares, a government consciously and practically at war with poverty, inequality, joblessness and underdevelopment, particularly in our villages.
This is what informs our country’s 20-year vision for building, together, a better life for all – the National Development Plan. This Plan offers proposals for tackling the problems of the day. We all must familiarise ourselves with it for the reason that it is South Africa’s roadmap for a better tomorrow.
The development of infrastructure is important for developing the economy and for creating wealth. Every classroom we build and furnish serves to promote the national goal of ending poverty, inequality and unemployment. The completion and handover of Welise Primary to the community offers yet another stepping-stone to a new society.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I want to say to our parents and learners gathered here today, and to those we are yet to visit, that the number of completed schools could have been higher by now. We had pledged to deliver 49 schools to the region by the end of March and we currently stand at 17 with 10 of them from the Libode District alone.
The major reason for this shortfall has been the liquidation of one of the contractors who was building 12 schools and the termination of the contract for another. Our implementing agents are in the process of appointing new contractors to complete the outstanding schools which currently stand at 85% completion on average. It will not be long before we announce the practical completion of those schools.
In addition, we have had a couple of underperforming contractors and that matter is being addressed. While the region has been blessed with abundant rains in October and November, this has resulted in delays in construction.
But I want to focus on the reason for this occasion. When I look around me, I see a beautiful structure that is finally giving our children, your children, a sense of dignity after a long night of denigration and depersonalisation of our people.
These facilities belong to the people and South Africa as a whole. I want to say to the learners and educators, you deserve your brand new school. Make the most of it, to learn and to teach, so that each one has an opportunity to shape a better future.
Our role is to provide appropriate structures and material. Your role is to take advantage of these structures and turn Welese Primary into a centre of excellence. The foundation is there. The Libode mega district did show an improvement in the 2012 National Senior Certificate results. But your Annual National Assessment results are still a source of concern.
While there was a slight improvement in Grade 3, there was a worrying drop in language in particular, in Grade 6, from 25% in 2011 to 8% in 2012. With these new facilities which allow for more time with your teachers in a better learning environment, we expect better results in all subjects from this year.
We all must build on District Director Nuku’s 4 pillars of (i) Quality teaching and learning; (ii) Effective instructional leadership (iii) Support for system-wide improvement and (iv) Clear and collaborative relationships, especially interpreting and managing the external environment to improve learner performance.
I also wish to say to the principal and the team here, including the learners, that this is your facility. Please take good care of it, with the help of the community. Taking good care of Welese and other completed schools will give us even more space to focus on other areas.
The Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative has targets already for the new financial year and we will continue working towards their achievement.
We intend to build an additional 200 schools, provide water and sanitation to 873.448 schools, and electricity to 369 schools. This is an ongoing programme; the focus for the 2010-2014 strategic planning periods remains the provision of basic safety norms and standards and the eradication of the schools constructed from inappropriate material.
We are working to eradicate all mud schools in the country, as identified on the ASIDI list, by the end of the 2014/15 financial year. We will report quarterly on our progress towards this goal.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Before I close, allow me to acknowledge the technical team that has been working on this important project. From the programme manager, project support unit, implementing agents and professional service providers, we say a heartfelt thank you for your patience and professionalism.
Programme Director, it was with sadness that we noted that one of our service providers who performed the important role of Clerk of Works, Mr Tienie Els, passed away in a car accident while on his way to one of our sites.
For the technical team, inspiring words from Ralph Waldo Emerson should suffice, that is: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Thanks to your efforts, 51 jobs had been created and 456 learners are immediately going to have their lives forever changed.
Government, as you know, cannot do it alone. Education is an essential service for our nation. Let us all treat it with the seriousness that it deserves. On our part, we are committed still to the task of improving access, quality, efficiency and equity in education.
But for us to provide the quality education our children deserve, accountability must improve across the system. This is one difficult area on which we are focusing, difficult because here we are grappling with entrenched comfort-zones and the perceived encroachment on imagined turf.
We are guided by the duty to ensure our learners have highly skilled and knowledgeable teachers in order to improve their chances of success.
Delivery in our schools will be improved by building strong and responsible leadership in all public schools. Dr Nuku understands this fact very well. We must ensure that each piece plays its role just as you would have in a game of chess.
The same goes for our work in extending care and support for learners. We invite you to support the Stop-Rape Campaign that we have launched in February this year with the President. Let’s tackle and defeat together the scourge of gender-based violence, abuse and rape of women and children.
Ladies and gentlemen, with the beauty of the Eastern Cape scenery that I see all around me, it is perhaps fitting that I should leave you with this Irish saying:
“May the road always rise to meet you, may the wind always be at your back, may the sun shine warmly on your face, and the rain fall softly on your fields. And, until we meet again, may God hold you gently in the palm of his hands.”
I thank you!
