Programme director
Superintendent-General for Education Mr Malope
Members of Senior and Broad Management
Representatives of our respective Developmental Partners in the corporate sector
Representatives from our Universities
All dignitaries present
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
I am happy to be part of this important occasion, where we are intending to brainstorm and come up with more community development initiatives, based on sound educational practices within our provincial education system.
Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, let me take this opportunity to acknowledge all stakeholders with whom our department is collaborating, who are present here, as well asthose who could not join us due to their respective commitments. Your presence and cooperation is highly appreciated.
There is a belief that education is a prerogative of government. This is not true, because education unlocks not only the muscles of the public sector, but it also benefits the private sector. That is where the notion of shared responsibility between the public and the private sectors becomes important, particularly in the ongoing quest for provision of World Class Education. That is one of the reasons we are here today, sharing the responsibility of making sure that this province is capable to respond to educational challenges, posed by the 21st century’s global educational trends.
The private sector is an essential partner in promoting education in our country. A large number and variety of public and private sector partnership initiatives are being carried out in many countries of the world. The main reason is that the public private partnerships (PPP) can complement and enhance the role of the government in the provision of quality education. Therefore, the Free State Department of Education has established a number of developmental partnerships with institutions of Higher Education, as well as the corporate sector. These partnership initiatives are beneficial to both learners and educators in terms of support for learners, curriculum for schools, management and leadership for educators and principals, information and communications technology (ICT) connectivity, as well as renovations and upgrading of school buildings, to mention just a few.
We believe that effective education can best be achieved if we collaborate with a range of other actors such as the civil society, independent experts, the private sector, communities and families. This would help us in the pooling of resources, competencies and capacities from all the stakeholders, to achieve outcomes that add value beyond what either party could achieve, acting alone.
This approach programme director, builds on the idea that different sectors in society public, private and civil society have different, yet potentially complementary core competencies and resources that, if appropriately joined, produce a positive sum to advance public and private goods and services. Therefore, we continuously seek to create and foster relationships with the business sector and other developmental actors in society. We believe that these relationships will fast track and strengthen our ability to deliver the kind of education that will effectively and positively respond to the demands of both the public and private sectors and lead to sustainable economic development within our province.
We are under a tremendous pressure to nurture high quality learners, especially in the fields of science, mathematics, technology and accounting, who are highly in demand in both the public and the corporate sectors. The private sector is playing a pivotal role in this regard. A typical example is the winter school project which is currently underway. Since its inception in 2007, this programme has proved to be highly beneficial to Grade 12 learners whose performance in mathematics, science, economics, and accounting improved considerably, with most of them achieving university entrance in their final examinations. This programme derives its success from a solid partnership we have with our local universities and banking companies, who provide expertise, capital resources as well as financial support, respectively.
Programme director, education and skills development and more broadly, the inadequate level of human resource development in our province, represent a critical constraint to achieving and sustaining an acceptable economic growth rate. While long term improvement in human resource development will take time, there is an urgent need to address priority skills areas now, if our efforts and those of our social partners to grow the economy and improve labour absorption, are to be successful.
Development of projects and reform efforts are not automatically institutionalised or easy to sustain. Achieving this requires active strategies and policies, to ensure that initial investments in infrastructure, technology, training and integrating the use of computers in teaching and learning are sustained and encouraged to grow. However, this may not be easily realised without sufficient involvement and support from essential stakeholders such as the business sector and institutions of higher learning. It is important to involve these stakeholders from the very beginning in decision-making and implementation processes.
The support we seek could be in various forms as I mentioned earlier, including an 'adopt –a-school' approach, lending expertise, infrastructure development, provision of essential resources, transfer of management and leadership skills, assistance with the conducting of Saturday and winter classes, as it is the case at the moment. We need more partners from the private sector to help us to intensify our campaign towards creating an environment which values mentoring of emerging and aspirant leaders, both in business and the government sectors.
These partnerships will enable us to intensify our mechanisms whereby we intend to attract, develop, promote and retain talented and suitably qualified young people, both male and female, black and white. We need to ensure that young people are given a chance to prove themselves and that their skills are fully utilised in the work place, both in the public and the private sectors, and that they are provided with equal opportunities.
We believe that this can only be realised by exposing young people to real work environment, through partnerships with relevant stakeholders, who will provide them with experiential training and mentorship. This will help them to understand and appreciate the challenges facing aspirant leaders, and the benefits that await creative and ambitious young people.
Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, we are not folding our arms and doing nothing, waiting for our corporate partners to do things for us. Over and above our quest to address the scarcity of infrastructure and resources, with the help of our respective partners, we are busy with the implementation of the Provincial Strategy on Learner Attainment (PSLA), a strategic initiative with which we intend to direct the focus of the education system in the Free State on continuous improvement, with regard to learner attainment in the National Senior Certificate examinations.
This focused approach on improvement of Grade 12 results does however, not suggest that interventions and attention to the rest of the system would be neglected. The strategy provides a holistic intervention to improve the quality of teaching and learning, the improvement of management, leadership and governance at schools, in order to ultimately improve learner attainment, or results. This strategy makes provision for overall support to school Management Teams (SMTs), teachers and learners, by all sections within the department.
The focus is on schools that achieved a pass rate of below 60% in the 2009 Grade 12 final examinations. Structured programmes are in place to ensure that schools share expertise and best practices through twining, as well as mentoring and coaching by experts through classroom demonstrations and observations. Further support to teachers and learners at these underperforming schools is provided in the form of curriculum support sessions, supplementary tuition for Grade 12 learners in the form Saturday and holiday classes as I mentioned earlier, as well as provision of DVD’s to schools, containing examination question papers and memoranda of all National Senior Certificate (NSC) subjects and per question analysis of NSC 2009 examination results, in order to allow educators to focus on problem areas observed. Consistent with the 2009-2014 Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) priorities and the Operation Hlasela as the defining Programme of Action for the Free State Government in the medium term, we have identified performance improvement in mathematics and science as our key focus areas.
To this end, an english, mathematics, science, technology and accounting strategy has been developed that seeks to achieve the following three broad strategic goals:
- Increasing the participation and performance rate in english, mathematics, science and accounting, with special a emphasis on learner attainment and increasing endorsements.
- Increasing the participation and performance of black learners, particularly those who are taking mathematics and science and following careers within mathematics and science fields.
- Strengthening and enhancing the capacity of educators to deliver quality english, mathematics, science and accounting instruction in the classroom.
Programme director, over and above the aforementioned results oriented interventions; we are busy building new schools across the province. All the equipments which are needed for a modern school are available in all schools we build, including those which we revamp, namely media centres with computers and libraries, as well as laboratories which are used for science and biology experimental exercises. These are just a few of the amenities which are found at these ultramodern schools.
In conclusion programme director, allow me to quote the words of wisdom once uttered by one of our struggle stalwarts, the late honorable Walter Sisulu, on the importance of education for the nation.
He said:
“Throughout the world, those who rule have always tackled ducation as a priority. The colonial world knew what it meant o be without education. Without education, even the greatest eople will perish”. (Walter Sisulu, 1998).
Programme director let me once more thank our partners who are here, as well as those who could not come. Your support is valuable in our quest to liberate the souls of our people through education. We hope that more and more stakeholders in the corporate sector will come on board to support us in the war against ignorance, unemployment, poverty, disease and mortality, through education.
Working together we can do more!
Thank you very much!
