CEO of NEEDU, Dr Nick Taylor
Deputy Minister, Mr Enver Surty
Director-General, Mr Booby Soobrayan
Officials and members of staff
Distinguished guests,
Let me first thank Dr Taylor, and his team, for the exceptional work they have done, in a very short space of time. You have confirmed the correctness of our decision to set-up the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (NEEDU), so as to jerk-up our accountability system.
The NEEDU National Report 2012, on the State of Literacy Teaching and Learning in the Foundation Phase, is a very timely intervention coming out just before we present the Budget Vote of the Department of Basic Education to the National Assembly, next Tuesday, on 7 May in Cape Town.
We will be asking Parliament to support our intervention strategies that are meant to remedy shortcomings in educational practice and to eliminate barriers to quality education. The NEEDU National Report 2012 has provided the evidence we require in this respect.
We welcome this important report precisely because we are committed to the goal of improving the quality of education for all children in the country. We will engage the valuable recommendations made by NEEDU in pursuance of its mandate to provide our department with expert advice, on a system-wide basis, on those factors that inhibit or advance school improvement.
As a department, we are particularly concerned about the poor levels of reading among our learners, especially those in the first few years of schooling. We are pleased therefore that the NEEDU team had focused its efforts in the first year of system-wide evaluations on the quality of teaching and learning in the Foundation Phase, the phase that is receiving our support.
In particular, we are pleased that the report from NEEDU speaks to some of the concerns we had articulated when we commissioned an audit of the Provincial Reading Programme, in February this year.
The audit report revealed the strengths and weaknesses in the provision of reading programmes and made recommendations on the nature of support that we, as a department, should provide to teachers and learners.
The extensive evaluation conducted by NEEDU has built on what was presented by the audit team, having identified low levels of reading and writing in the Foundation Phase as being of particular concern in attaining quality education.
The NEEDU report gives us evidence of where we continue to fall short in teaching young learners to read, as well as evidence of good practice that we can learn from, moving-forward. We take heart in the pockets of excellence in reading instruction and take seriously the recommendations to improve those areas that are not working well.
The evidence presented in the report shows a lack of sufficient and consistent monitoring of learner reading in school by School Management Teams. This is an area that we, as the department, are working hard to address.
Another area of concern relates to the difficulties that had been experienced by many teachers and learners around the country pertaining to complex language issues.
Many learners do not speak the language of teaching in the schools that they attend. This obviously renders learning difficult for learners. We have taken steps already as a department to respond to this area of concern. And we’re making inroads.
We believe all learners should be given a solid grounding in English to assist them when they move from the Foundation Phase to the Intermediate Phase. It was for this reason that in 2012 we introduced English as a compulsory First Additional Language in all African language speaking schools.
We believe that this policy, supported by the new workbooks that we have introduced, is an important step towards our goal of quality education. We also believe strongly that a good grounding in a learner’s Home Language is paramount. And so, in 2014, a new policy will come into effect mandating the learning of an African language in all schools.
We’re pleased that the NEEDU report provides evidence that the workbook programme is well received throughout the education system. It shares the concern, based on evidence, that this valuable resource is not used to its full potential. We will improve the quality of the workbooks and ensure that all learners have access to, and use this resource.
The National Planning Commission has characterised present conditions in the South African civil service as symptomatic of those prevalent in civilizations in decline. However, these conditions are also typical of those preceding periods of renewal, and that is where we find ourselves today.
It is against this backdrop that we welcome recommendations by NEEDU that more work needs to be done to make the civil service, and the teaching profession in particular, more professional.
We have heeded this call and are in the process of improving accountability measures, across the system, to ensure that all teachers are in school, on time, regularly, and teaching.
We welcome the first NEEDU National Report and recognise the hard-work and dedication on the part of the team to provide the Department of Basic Education, and myself, with implementable recommendations to improve teaching and learning in all our schools.
This is what the nation asks of us, an improved quality of education to meet the human resources development needs of the people so as to create jobs and end poverty and inequality.
Dr Taylor,
We take seriously the many recommendations made in the report, knowing that they are based on sound evidence, gathered as it is from nine provincial evaluations, 15 district evaluations and 133 school evaluations, in 2012.
We look forward to engaging with all those who are concerned with the challenges we face in providing the quality of education that we expect and deserve. We look forward also to the second national report early in 2014, that will give us more insight on challenges and achievements in the provision of quality education to learners in the Intermediate Phase.
Lastly we acknowledge that there is always room for improvement. Indeed the NEEDU team will be a valuable contributor to the debates and ultimately to the policy decisions that we make.
