Programme director
Esteemed delegates
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you most warmly for inviting us to this special occasion, the opening of Equal Education’s People’s Summit for Quality Education. This moment is very important because it has created an opportunity for us to interact intimately united under the banner of quality and equal education for all.
Your choice of date and timing for this conversation is quite crucial. Tomorrow, 26 June 2011, is the 56th Anniversary of the Freedom Charter which was adopted by the people of South Africa – black and white – in Kliptown, on 26 June 1955. The Freedom Charter redefined the struggle for freedom, called for a new order based on the will of the people and gave us a new vision for education.
The ‘people’s’ aspect of this assembly of patriots and educationists, the mass-based ‘look and feel’ that Equal Education has given to this encounter is reminiscent of the collective spirit informing the making of the Freedom Charter.
The feeling of a people united by a common desire for a better life, evoked by the image of Kliptown, you have kept alive by opening the People’s Summit in Khayelitsha.
In Kliptown, calling ardently for a better and equal education we said: “The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened”. Among other things, this education clause of the Charter categorically stated that: "Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children;..Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan.”
When we engaged in combat for “people’s education for people’s power” it is the Freedom Charter’s vision of education that we sought to bring to life.
We are grateful to Equal Education for you have given us a chance better to remember activists of our land who knew the possibility, necessity and value of education. Their memory seeds our dreams, waters our hopes and nurtures our aspirations. Our dreams are for equality, dignity and justice for all.
Our hopes are that we will equip learners, irrespective of their socio-economic background, race, gender, physical ability or intellectual ability, with the knowledge, skills and values necessary for self-fulfilment, and meaningful participation in society as citizens of a free country. This is the basis for the Freedom Charter’s belief in equal education.
Most importantly, our aspirations are for a country and people who will stand proud and tall among the greatest in all our achievements, including education.
These noble aspirations and our vision for a better society find resonance in community-driven initiatives like Equal Education’s People’ Summit for Quality Education.
In the face of grinding poverty, inequality and wasted national talent and potential, together we have to find a way forward to enable the realisation of all capabilities through education. We have to find a way forward specifically in addressing the challenge of quality education.
We have to find a way forward together because we can be under no illusions about the enormity of the challenges we face.
You are all aware that the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study(PIRLS) international assessments have placed South Africa at the bottom of the international class in literacy and numeracy.
Our own systemic assessments in 2001 and 2004 revealed shockingly low levels of literacy and numeracy in primary schools. The Southern African Consortium of Monitoring Quality Education (SACMEQ) results of 2007 have shown small improvements in reading since 2003, but not in maths.
The National Planning Commission’s Diagnostic Overview has also identified poor educational achievement as our major challenge in education. I will release our own Annual National Assessment (ANA) results on Tuesday.
We have a choice. We can dwell on the bad news and whip ourselves and one another for it. But that will not solve anything. We have to harness our joint anger for the greater good of the children. We have to find a way forward, and fortunately, we are not starting from a blank slate.
We have many policies and initiatives in place. Amongst these are the revised Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements giving teachers the more detailed guidance that they requested; high-quality Workbooks; the National Reading Strategy; the Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Development and the Accelerated School Infrastructure Development Initiative.
We also have our own experiences to work from. One example is found in the Western Cape.
Although it still has a long way to go, it has made some strides with its literacy and numeracy strategy in the last decade. This was acknowledged in the 2010 McKinsey Report on How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep getting Better.
We have an enormous reservoir of experience, ideas and energy in our country to draw on. In facing our challenges, though, we must all acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses and improve on both.
Both in government and in civil society, in universities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), we have to strengthen our implementation strategies, be much more targeted and focused, cooperative, inclusive and purposeful, in the way we address specific challenges.
I read with interest the opening sentence to the invitation to delegates to the summit in which you wrote: “The summit will develop delegates as education activists and empower them with practical plans to improve their own schools, sharing powerful analysis and inspiring successes.”
That is what gives me hope: the focus on practical plans. Our dreams, hopes and aspirations can only come to fruition if we are practical about what we do, are focused on solving problems rather than creating them, have a plan to go about it, and then do it purposefully. That is how we have come this far on our road to a transformed and quality system of education.
I do hope that together we can enhance the synergy between national, provincial and local planning in building a national reading culture and society.
We welcome Equal Education’s interest in the promotion of a reading and activist culture in our society. The basic tenets of our National Reading Strategy spelt out in 2008 is still relevant.
Here we identified six areas to which we must pay attention: (i) teacher competency (ii) libraries (iii) teaching conditions (iv) the print environment (v) language issues and (vi) inclusive education.
I can speak to all of these areas but I know that delegates to this summit are most concerned about libraries and infrastructure. So let me address this.
Equal Education has raised these matters with us, through letters, memoranda, emails and marches. It has emphasised the norms and standards for school infrastructure and the training and appointment of librarians in schools.
We even discussed these issues in a meeting in Cape Town, on 10 February 2011, where we agreed to cordial cooperation in the interest of education.
I greatly appreciate the social conscience, interest and activism expressed in the letters and engagements. Community participation is critical to the success of all our initiatives.
I was particularly humbled by the enthusiasm and courage of Khayelitsha mothers who wrote to me directly to express their concerns about the state of education in their area.
The leadership of Equal Education will confirm that we have on various occasions met and engaged on these issues. We have shared information and explained what we want to achieve and how we thought it ought to be done.
Be rest assured, we share your frustrations on the length of time required to tackle infrastructure backlogs and other challenges flowing from the apartheid legacy. But I must say, I would rather have a school with a library that will last than one that is built on sand and falls in the wink of an eye.
I would much rather have a school with a library corner, where books are shared and read, than one without any at all because we are folding our hands and waiting until there is a room called a library.
And this is where we must all play our part – in the creation of learning spaces and a reading culture wherever we are. As we all know, books are mediated through teachers, parents and peers. One can, ultimately, read anywhere. What is important is the fact of reading, the enjoyment of reading, the desire to read. That’s where it starts. Lest there be any doubt, Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure are crucial to me.
Improving literacy and numeracy means improving reading and that means improving exposure of children to books and the written word. A library is one very important way of doing this.
Another is to ensure that all children have one textbook per subject. The achievement of this has been one of my main goals.
But a library or even a library corner or a shelf for textbooks is useless in a school where the wind howls through broken windows, ceilings threaten to collapse on children, there is no light by which to read and children are too crowded one on top of the other to move.
The children will simply not be interested in reading and learning. School buildings must therefore conform to certain norms and standards if they are to be learning spaces.
Too many of our structures were born in a period of our history where there was little concern for learning of African children – a fact that can’t be wished away. It is this that must be corrected.
I gazetted the National Policy for an Equitable Provision of an Enabling School Physical Teaching and Learning Environment in June 2010. Norms and standards based on this policy were then developed. The Norms and Standards were approved in 2010 by the Council of Education Ministers.
These require regulations, and so we developed regulations. These will shortly be released for public comment.
It is important to note, though, that provinces are already using the Norms and Standards in the planning of new schools. The regulations are being phased in for existing schools, based on provincial capacity.
We have an enormous challenge as a country.This challenge begins with teaching and learning how to read and write, count and calculate, reason and debate.
This is precisely why we administered Annual National Assessments in February (2011). You will receive the ANA results next week. We will use these results to identify areas of weakness that need improvement.
We can either look for scapegoats and evade responsibility, or we can all think and act as responsible citizens of a democratic country and grab the bull by the horns.
Together, we must ensure that schools work, and that quality teaching and learning takes place. By working collectively for an improved quality of basic education, as “education activists”, we will usher in an era of “people’s education for people’s power”.
I wish you all the success for your summit.
Source: Department of Basic Education
