Your Excellency, Ambassador Roeland van de Geer
Leader of EU Parliamentarians, Mr Michael Cashman
Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Nzimande
Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Mr Enver Surty
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, Mrs Hope Malgas
Esteemed Members of the Press
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am exceedingly glad to be here with His Excellency, Ambassador Roeland van de Geer of the European Union in this ceremony that will go down in history as a powerful expression of international cooperation and development.
We are indeed making history as we take part in the South African launch of the massive EU supported Primary Education Sector Policy Support Programme whose overall objective is to contribute to improving learner performance in literacy and numeracy at primary school level.
The financing agreement was negotiated and signed at an international launch in Brussels, in September 2010 on the fringes of President Jacob Zuma’s visit to Belgium, ahead of the 3rd South Africa/European Union Summit.
As we announced earlier, the total cost of the programme is €122 680 000 (estimated at R1 216 450 000), which should be an occasion for celebration for every South African who is genuinely interested in the education of the African child.
The programme will help us strengthen the fundamental elements of the education system that are key to improving the quality of learning and teaching – with a particular focus on primary schooling to lay a solid foundation.
I can share with the Ambassador the confidence with which I signed with President Zuma the delivery agreement on behalf of my department, in October 2010, binding us to provide an improved quality of basic education. We knew we would succeed, for, among other reasons, we had committed to this performance agreement only a few weeks after receiving a lifeline from the European Union.
Our utilisation of this grant is very focused and I am particularly pleased that it will help us attend to some of the fundamentals that I believe are essential for improving quality in this country: the quality of our teachers, teaching and the quality of resources that reach our schools as well as their utilisation.
We are using the support to improve access to quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) particularly for children from poorest communities where there are very limited opportunities for early learning. We will work with the Department of Social Development to ensure improvements in access and quality of ECD for 0-5 year-olds.
We are focusing on attracting more young people into the teaching profession, particularly to teach in the Foundation Phase in indigenous languages. This is coupled with growing the number of programmes available to train teachers in these areas – an area of historical neglect.
We are using the money to redouble our efforts for improved literacy and numeracy teaching in our schools. Already, the fruits of this financial agreement are showing.
We have introduced this year the Annual National Assessments in literacy and numeracy that are internationally benchmarked, at Grades 3, 6 and 9. This, coupled with the increased teaching and learning resources in the form of workbooks, readers and lesson plans for teachers – will help us strengthen our strategies to improve literacy and numeracy teaching in our schools and thereby improve performance.
We are on course to meeting and even exceeding the targets set in the financing agreement. We already have in excess of the 63% we had set as a target for enrolment in Grade R classes for this year – and so, the focus on quality can truly begin.
We had committed to growing the number of matriculants with quality passes who choose to train as Foundation Phase teachers. We had hoped to have at least 6 000 of these young aspirant teachers by this year – already we have slightly less than 8 000 of them registered.
We had also asked the EU to assist us work with our faculties of education to increase the number of Higher Education Institutions providing training in Foundation Phase teaching. With the support you are providing, we have been able to surpass the target we had set of having at least 17 of our institutions training Foundation Phase teachers.
This year all of our Higher Education Institutions that are providing teacher training are participating in the EU funded programme to develop the Foundation Phase curricula and training programmes. A real success story indeed!
Clearly, on education, we will exceed the Millennium Development Goals set for 2015.
On behalf of our government and the people of South Africa, I would like to thank the European Union for our partnership that is key to tackling the developmental challenges facing our fledgling democracy.
We value the good relations and cooperation between us as was expressed further last Wednesday, 16 February, at a meeting between my Deputy, Mr Enver Surty, and the EU Ambassador, here in Cape Town.
Lastly, the Primary Education Sector Policy Support Programme will help us achieve quality education and access for all.
I thank you
Source: Department of Basic Education
