The Deputy Minister
All MECs present
Our Director-General
Officials and staff
Let me add a word of thanks to all of you for making it to this important session of the Council of Education Ministers (CEM), halfway into the academic year, with only one last day standing between us and the historic kick-off at Soccer City, between the mighty Bafana Bafana and Mexico.
It gives me great pleasure to announce to you that we have appointed a very dynamic and energetic DG for Basic Education, Bobby Soobrayan.
At our last meeting, in April, we announced that, together with our Deputy Minister, we will embark on visits to provinces and districts, to address specific issues concerning our overarching goal of improving education, by ensuring that our schools are fully functional, and most importantly, are seen to be fully functional.
Accordingly, from Tuesday 11 May, we set out to the provinces and districts for oversight visits. These visits were fruitful and eye-opening. The Deputy Minister went to schools in the Free State. I covered Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and the Eastern Cape. While in Cape Town, for parliamentary duties, we both visited schools in the Western Cape.
We are very grateful to our MECs for the wonderful reception. Thanks also to our Heads of Department and officials in the provinces and districts for all the support. Officials from Sol Plaatjie were also superb.
Despite the difficulties we encountered at some of the schools, the spirit of cooperation around the visits demonstrated what we can achieve, working together, in line with principles of cooperative governance.
In the schools I visited, obstacles calling for urgent attention included: a poor work culture; incompetent and poorly qualified educators; ineffective school management and governance; inadequate support from districts; poor infrastructure and lack of community mobilisation. But of course, the situation differed from school to school, influenced by among other things, the socio-economic context of respective schools.
Shocking experiences included an utterly dysfunctional school we went to in Bushbuckridge, after which our response was grossly misrepresented deliberately by some sections of the media. There were also pockets of excellence and what the Deputy Minister characterised in respect of a school he visited in an informal settlement in the Free State, as ‘a sea of poverty, and an island of hope’.
The Deputy Minister had a positive encounter at two of our technical schools, one in the Free State and another in Cape Town. We will consider this matter further under item D5, on ‘the Recapitalisation of Technical High Schools’.
Work on the curriculum, flowing from the 2009 Review, is going well. Before us today is the report of the committee that was tasked to examine the implementation implications of the reduction of learning areas for the intermediate phase. Effective implementation will require a phased approach, a communication strategy and a monitoring and evaluation team.
Drafts of most of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) should be ready by the end of the World Cup, and we expect to implement the Foundation Phase CAPS documents in 2011.
The department has already made available guidelines on Grade 12 mathematics and physics examination papers that will help solve some of the problems we faced last year. Going by the challenges we have articulated and the urgency accorded to curriculum review, it is imperative, as part of our plans for the next term, to look very seriously into the question of whether or not our provinces have the capacity to offer effective support to all schools and educators. Without sound district management and curriculum support, there is no way we can improve school functionality and deliver on our government’s priorities, including upping the pass rate of learners in the Foundation Phase to 60% by 2014.
It therefore becomes crucial to pronounce ourselves on how best to infuse life into our districts, ensuring that they are enabled to fulfil their core functions. I do not think there is any disagreement on the need to provide clear guidance on the organisation, role and responsibilities of districts. Our immediate task is to agree on what needs to be done better to finalise this matter, once and for all.
Another issue begging attention is the finalisation of the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Development Initiative. This will help us fast-track the provision of basic infrastructure to schools which are currently unable to operate properly, due to inadequate infrastructure.
As resolved at the Council meeting of 15 to 16 April, we are looking forward to receiving presentations from Provincial Departments on their accelerated infrastructure delivery programmes.
We cannot sit back and relax when 5 640 of our schools are below basic functionality. Having on our agenda item C.2, on ‘moderation of School Based Assessment’, speaks great volumes of our Heads of Department. We really thank you for giving this matter the urgency it deserves. In our best interest and in the main in the best interest of all our young people “the inheritors of our future” (OR Tambo) we must deliver on our new Action Plan for the improvement of Basic Education, which we have provisionally called Schooling 2025.
As we approach the World Cup, we are quite aware that the spectre of child trafficking may raise its ugly head on our shores. It is our duty to raise awareness of communities around this malady and encourage parents and child-minders to protect and take good care of children. We thank MECs and provincial departments for turning My 2010 School Adventure into a resounding success. Without doubt, we all deserve a pat on the back for reaching five million learners through this campaign.
You did us all proud by helping our nation in allaying fears that the World Cup may affect performance and safety given the extended winter break.
We are encouraged by the various winter school holiday programmes provinces have adopted. It is imperative to use available media and other communication platforms to make parents and communities aware of these programmes. I will also use the winter break to meet key stakeholders and corporate entities active in the field of education. During this period, I will also visit districts and winter holiday centres.
We must ride proactively on the back of the positive mood created around the World Cup. For that matter, media houses are keen to promote programmes looking at education as a societal issue. This being mid-year, with only a few months before our third national senior certificate examinations, let me urge you to pull out all the stops to ensure all our learners are given a chance to prove their worth.
Our curriculum team has made progress in developing an Improvement Strategy for Grade 12 Learners. Its approval and effective implementation will enrich all efforts geared to improve the performance of the class of 2010 in line with our targets. Our challenge is to capitalise on the current mood generated by the World Cup to improve Grade 12 results. The acid test is therefore to ensure that performance of the Class of 2010 signifies the turnaround of education as part of the legacy of the World Cup.
The two-day session ahead of us, must take us at least ‘two steps forward’ towards our vision of “a South Africa in which all our people will have access to lifelong learning” (Department of Basic Education Strategic Plan 2010/13).
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Basic Education
9 June 2010
