Programme Director,
Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Nhlanhla Nene
Sugar Industry Trust Fund for Education Chairman, Mr Tim Murray
Sasa Development Manager, Ms Nkonzo Mhlongo
SITFE recipients present
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning,
It is indeed a pleasure for me to be part of such an auspicious occasion of the Sugar Industry Trust Fund for Education. Firstly, I would like to apologise for the Deputy President, Mr Kgalema Motlanthe, who could not attend this function due to other pressing government commitments.
The industry’s commitment over a long period of time speaks to its understanding that education is key to achieving sustainable development and economic growth in our country. This has been demonstrated through your contribution to the education sector over the past 45 years. On behalf of the government of South Africa and the Ministry of Higher Education and Training in particular, I sincerely congratulate you and hope that many more successful companies and emerging entrepreneurs in our country will follow suit.
Financing of Education in our in equal society is complex and has a long history. Government alone cannot address the needs of impoverished young people without a dedicated commitment from the private sector.
As government, we are determined to ensure access to quality education for deserving young people. Hence, the mandate of our department is to ensure that young people between the ages of 18 to 24 who are out of school and out of employment have access to skills development.
It is interesting to note, that all our leaders have been consistent in calling for prioritisation of Education, within a democratic government.
Former President Nelson Mandela said: “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
Mr Mandela, our icon, certainly not only pleaded for financial assistance of the poor, but called for individual excellence and a winning mind.
President Jacob Zuma, during the world cup, joined FIFA president and world leaders and star footballers, to launch the “One Goal Educations for all” campaign. They agreed to work towards a breakthrough on global education funding in 2010, in order to make education the legacy of the 2010 FIFA world cup in Africa and poor regions around the world. In his speech he said: “We are signing up to the One Goal campaign today because we believe that it is the responsibility of every government to make their commitment to tackle this indefensible situation, and also to meet the millennium development goal, by acting now, together we can assure education for all.
The Deputy President, Kgalema Motlanthe, during an address at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) Prize Initiative in 2010, said, “Education is one of the five priorities of government. The other four are: housing, rural development, job creation and fight against crime as well as health.The prioritisation of education is based on the fact that education is an equaliser to enable us to address the many challenges that bear on the future of our country. Government is aware that without much progress in the improvement of the quality of education and producing learners with basic skills consistent with the demands of the globalised world, our country will remain trapped in economic and technological stagnation.”
One could add to the words of our leaders, by saying that, as a country, without Education, we will remain unequal, exclusive and characterised by the alienation of the majority of our young citizens, a state of being which is a recipe for conflict and instability.
The contribution you have made to the lives of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, in the fields of engineering, science and technology, mathematics and agriculture is at the core of our economic Growth Path and Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAPII). It is the heart and soul of our department’s mandate to support economic policies, by accelerating the attainment of scarce skills.
Ladies and gentlemen, we recently delivered the budget vote of the Department of Higher Education and Training before the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, in Parliament. The budget votes spoke to noble outcomes – namely, access to quality education and training. They also call for a considerable effort to be conscious of the most vulnerable groups, mainly poor blacks, women, the disabled, people from rural areas and those living with HIV and Aids.
Government’s prioritisation of education is evident in the budget allocation of 19.4% of the total national budget to education and training. During the current budget vote, Higher Education and Training received R 37.4 billion of which R 9.1 billion is a direct charge against the national revenue fund and goes to our Sector Education and Training Authorities and the National Skills Fund.
Universities received the biggest portion of the budget namely R19.4billion for the 2011/12 financial year. R 4.3 billion is allocated to Further Education and Training (FET) colleges as part of the FET Sector conditional grant. R 4.1 billion is allocated to our public entities of which R 4 billion is allocated to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) that support our poor learners to enter into the University and FET sectors for further study. The remainder goes to the South African Qualifications Authority, the Council on Higher Education, the National Skills Fund and the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations. In total, 98.71% of our budget is allocated for transfers to institutions, who are our key partners in ensuring the delivery of post-school education and training.
Within the amounts reflected above, it should be noted that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme received an additional allocation for further education and training college student awards and bursaries of more than R3.8 billion. Additional funding was also made available for the further education and training colleges conditional grant for increased student enrolment (R1.4 billion) and improved conditions of service for further education and training college personnel (R328 million). Other significant increases are:
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Funding to establish universities in Mpumalanga and Northern Cape, has been allocated a total of R300 million over the three years of the 2011 MTEF
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R 172 million over the MTEF has been allocated to the further education and training colleges, and adult education and training examination function.
Having put all these resources to our education system, it has become clear that government funding is not adequate. For example, a poor student, might receive a R15 000 grant from NSFAS and still fail to complete a year, given other financial needs which might not be taken care of by the government grant or a loan. Hence a need for a close cooperation between government, funding bodies and the private sector.
While we appreciate the efforts of the Sugar Industry Trust Fund for Education, I need to state that access to higher learning opportunities in South Africa remains a particular concern for the Department of Higher Education and Training. There are too many confounding variables such as challenges of rural communities, inadequate infrastructure, questionable educator discipline, learner commitments, political instability and rigid admission requirements in our institutions of Higher Learning.
Admittedly, our universities do not have the capacity to absorb numbers of deserving students.
We have instituted measures to ensure that the capacity of the College sector grows substantially over the next few years. We continue to provide direct support to colleges in the areas of governance, management, curriculum, qualifications, planning and funding. Our ambition is to reach one million students in the college sector by 2014, so as to make them institutions of choice for our young people.
Further to this, since the introduction of the National Certificate Vocational in 2007, the department has noted the need to review the qualifications, offered at Colleges, so as to ensure that, they serve their intended purpose, of delivering academic knowledge and practical training simultaneously. The Engineering Council of South Africa proposes that, for each engineer to function, she needs four technologists 16 technicians and 256 artisans.
The extension of the Report 191 (NATED) programmes, the so called N courses, will also enable us to meet the targeted requirement of producing 10 000 artisans per annum. In addition, the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) is focussing its efforts in updating the Artisan qualifications beyond N1-N3.
Whilst colleges will be supported to meet this target, we are appealing to the private sector to expand work placement opportunities, so as to enable students, to successfully complete trade tests and other qualifications. We call on business, industry, government departments, state owned enterprises, municipalities, and education and training institutions to work together in providing and creating work experience opportunities for students.
We are also working on the improvement of the quality of teaching, learning and training at Adult Education and Training centres. This would ensure that, learners exit these centres, with a quality qualification which would enable them to access further learning and training with ease.
Ladies and gentlemen, through all these efforts we are trying to create a differentiated, but carefully articulated post-school landscape, including universities, colleges, adult education centres, the sector education and training authorities (SETAs) and various regulatory and advisory institutions.
We are working closely with the entire sector to find systemic arrangements to ensure greater cooperation and coordination to benefit the training system as a whole.
In closing, I would like to share with you the three values in education which should guide our commitments. They were articulated by the late Prof. Kader Asmal, during his 2004 Keynote Address at the Conference on Human Rights and Democracy Education in the Curriculum: Challenges and Contestations, as follows:
- “Ubuntu, human dignity premised on a deep sense of humanism, is the profound value of human recognition that arises as we discover our humanity, not in the abstract, but in ongoing relations of reciprocal regard with other human beings.
- An open society, which is established by our Constitution is the crucial context in which we realise freedom of conscience, expression, communication, assembly, and association.
- Accountability, which puts our responsibility to each other into practice, underpins the social contract in which we prove ourselves worthy of each other’s trust.”
To all the recipients of the bursaries, you are the winners of the race, sincere congratulations, we hope you will make the best use of the opportunity.
I thank you
