The Deputy Minister
MECs present
Our Director-General and all SGs
Esteemed participants
Basic education officials
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Once again, welcome and thank you for coming to this symposium on Action Plan to 2014: Towards the realisation of Schooling 2025. We are holding this symposium on a plan we started to develop at the beginning of this year because we want to broaden the platform for engagement.
The reason for this is that this consultation must help us refine our strategies and interventions. It must assist us in sharpening all efforts aimed at improving the quality of basic education.
In setting the scene for our discussions, I thought it appropriate to answer directly, and by illustration, the question: ‘What makes this plan different from the rest?’
Answering this question will help to locate it in its proper context and so show its strategic value, necessity and potential for turning around schooling in the best interest of all our people. The action plan is a vehicle for achieving Outcome 1 of the 12 outcomes representing the top priorities of government. Outcome 1 speaks to ‘improved quality of basic education’.
The action plan is linked to the delivery agreement which I will be signing with the President together with the Deputy Minister and all nine MECs for education, binding all of us to deliver an improved quality of basic education.
Over and above committing the national education department and all nine provincial education departments to the same goals, this plan also involves 17 other national government departments and a range of education stakeholders.
We have already received valuable input on gaps in the plan and on ways of tackling old problems differently.
The question of quality explains precisely why we have requested you to join hands with us, together to chart a way-forward for quality schooling in South Africa, using the action plan as a point-of-departure.
Even before 1994, we committed to improving educational quality. In A Policy Framework For Education And Training (January 1994), the African National Congress reflected on “the crisis in education” and called for “quality general education for all children” and “quality lifelong learning [for] all citizens”.
This early policy framework for education was based on guidelines adopted by the ANC Policy Conference of May 1992, and contained in the document ready to govern.
Similarly, though in a different context and political landscape, we want Action Plan to 2014 to derive its strength from broad consultation, vigorous debate and consensus-building policy development involving everybody.
One of the milestones has been the launch of the multi-stakeholder Quality Teaching and Learning Campaign, in 2008.
Your presence here is important because, I believe; it is better to critique government policies and approaches directly and constructively by way of open and honest engagement.
As a result, since democracy was won in 1994, much has changed in South Africa's schools. Many more children complete the compulsory Grades 1 to 9. We now have almost 100 percent enrolment, compared to only 80 percent in 1994. Our situation compares favourably with what occurs in other countries at a similar level of economic development. In this regard, we have achieved on the relevant Millennium Development Goals.
But much still needs to be done, including addressing poor quality teaching and learning in our schools. Accordingly, the action plan is intended largely to strengthen weak areas in the education system.
It has been developed in line with the Presidency’s 2009 national strategic planning, and draws direction from the guiding document Improving Government Performance: Our approach. The approach underlying the plan is an outcomes-based approach. It specifies the outcomes and activities intended to achieve them.
The action plan is located within a long-term vision, that is, Schooling 2025. This vision spells out a number of long term targets necessary to turn around schooling. Schooling 2025 is a significant long-term vision for schools.
One purpose of the action plan is to bring greater rigour into the monitoring of the schooling system, and promote better research into the challenges faced by the sector.
All in all, it offers 27 national goals, 13 of which are output goals dealing with better school results and better enrolment of learners in schools. The remaining 14 deal with things that must happen for the output goals to be realised.
As we propose in the Action Plan, by 2025 we want to see the following in every South African school, and this I shall articulate very briefly lest I pre-empt your valuable input.
We want to see Learners who attend school every day, and on time. These would be learners who understand the importance of doing their schoolwork, in school and at home. Given that much learning happens through the use of computers, from Grade 3 onwards all learners must be computer literate.
We want to have properly trained teachers, who continuously improve their capabilities and are confident in their profession. These would be teachers who understand the importance of the teaching profession in the development of the nation.
We are aspiring for school principals who will ensure that teaching in the schools takes place as it should, and according to the national curriculum. These would be principals fully conscious of their role as leaders with a responsibility effectively and efficiently to promote harmony, creativity and a sound work ethic within school communities and beyond.
We want to see parents who are well informed about what happens in schools, who receive regular reports on how their children perform against clear standards shared by all schools.
We must deliver on high-quality learning and teaching materials envisaged in the minimum schoolbag policy. Effective schooling requires ‘teachers, textbooks and time’. Our ultimate aim is that every learner has access to at least one textbook per subject that can be taken home after school. By 2025, we would like to see school buildings and facilities that are spacious, functional, safe and well maintained.
The action plan makes provision for achieving the goal of improved quality early childhood development.
One of the key priorities for the coming years will be to fine-tune annual national assessments.
I will not at this stage list the 27 goals or delve much on them, otherwise I will spoil this moment for you. As I said, your input is very critical for this process to succeed.
We trust that with your input, beyond this symposium, we will turn the action plan into a potent weapon of change.
When things go wrong in education, it is the poorest of the poor who suffer the most. It is those children on the margins of affluent and best-elected communities who suffer the most, condemned, in perpetuity, to a wretched life of poverty.
Lastly, to make a difference, we require active participation of civil society, organised labour, business and other stakeholders. As we said in the ANC Policy Framework for Education:
“The journey we are embarking on is long and hard. The educational problems of our country run deep and there are no easy or quick-fix solutions. We need to walk this path together in confidence and hope.”
Once more, welcome, and thank you for coming. The future of this country and its children is in your hands.
Source: Department of Basic Education
