Programme Director Members of the Top and Senior Management in Education,
Organised Labour
Our partners and sponsors
Members of business Fraternity
The entire education corps present here today Invited guests from within the Education Sector and beyond
Ladies and Gentlemen
Excellence is not an act, but a habit
It gives me great pleasure to be with you here today to grace this Service Excellence Awards event. As the Greek philosopher Aristotle once asserted: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit".
These awards are significant in that they come at the time when our fledgling democracy is celebrating 20 years of freedom, peace and prosperity. They also occur amid revolutionary changes in the schooling system occasioned by a plethora of progressive polices such as Action Plan 2014; Towards Schooling 2025, and the National Development Plan (NDP). I will elaborate of these policies later in my address.
Programme Director at the core of these polices is quality education for the African child and the rest of pupils in the public sector schooling system. What we have acknowledged a long time ago is that excellence in public schooling is not an event but a process that involves the whole society. We are therefore pleased that these awards go a long way in acknowledging some of the key partners in the deliverance of quality education – educators and learners. Education for us is and will remain a societal issue. No single stakeholder acting independently will produce the desired outcomes as envisaged in the NDP. We all have to play our part.
Salute to teachers and learners
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education wishes to salute all schools and teachers who have entered the Service Excellence Awards. The department also acknowledges their extraordinary efforts, which have been achieved often under very difficult conditions and in service to our children, many of whom come from poor communities.
The Service Excellence Awards are but one of the ways in which the department acknowledges and encourages dedicated and caring teachers in their efforts to develop each learner as a citizen of a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.
We need to extend the service excellence awards beyond teachers to include office based educators and officials employed through public service act. Service excellence should permeate the entire system if we are to transform and improve the performance of the department.
Objectives of the Service Excellence Awards
The awards programme aim is to promote sharing of best practices, learning, rewarding good performance and to gauge citizen satisfaction towards government performance.
Anchors
The public service excellence awards are an off-spring of two important pieces of policies, the white paper on the Transformation of the Public Service and White Paper on Service Delivery. Key to these policies is the delivery of public services which meets the basic needs by putting people first.
Apart from the White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery, the most powerful mandates for the development and implementation of a Service Commitment Charter come from the Constitution; the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act; the Promotion of Access to Information Act and the Public Service Regulations.
According to the White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery, all service delivery sites, including schools, are expected to comply in respect of the Batho Pele
Our Government is fully aware of the hindrances to service excellence and has come up with various programmes to promote integration, transversal work and team work amongst government departments, individuals and sections. It is part of my vision that in this department we vigorously promote teamwork where one hand knows what the other does. We need to work towards a cohesive system.
Consequently I want to be an MEC that is closer to employees at all levels so that I will not only understand your frustrations, but be part of the strategy that will realise practical and workable solutions to alleviate those frustrations.
Turning around service delivery will mean undoing the legacy of the apartheid public service whose orientation was towards serving the interest of white domination. In essence blacks were generally reduced to subservience, and particularly the majority who felt the most of apartheid brunt is Africans. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Department is fully committed that the public service we are building must never allow the tradition of apartheid education and the dead past to ‘weigh like a nightmare on the brains of the living’. We must build a public service whose orientation must be the realisation of a developmental state: a public service which meets the service needs of the province by putting people first.
Consultation
Our people yearn for a public service that is responsive to their needs. The majority of our communities may not understand entirely the complexity of providing quality education, but they do understand that education is an important lever to breaking the cycle of poverty and inequalities. Consultation of communities and stakeholders is a central pillar of our democracy.
Service Standards
As we acknowledge this year’s achievers, let us be reminded that the standards that have been set must continuously improve and be in line with the ever changing needs of our communities. Action Plan 2014; the National Development Plan, Vision 2030, Provincial Growth and Development Plan and the Department Strategic Plan outlines key service standards that the Department must strive to achieve. Key to all the plans is the achievement of the following:
1. Improving the quality of teaching through pre-service and continuous teacher development.
2. Courageous and effective leadership
3. Improving government capacity to deliver which includes efficiency in the provision and utilisation of teachers so that excessively large classes are avoided.
4. Improving resources to create a conducive and safe learning environment: teachers, books and infrastructure.
5. Community and parent involvement.
6. Learner support and well-being.
Through the department strategic plan there is clear minimum expectations in the form of performance indicators and targets to meet these standards. There is urgency that the department service standards are communicated to quantifiable targets relevant to the schools’ specific communities. The same must be done by schools: schools must be able to communicate to the public the minimum service standards and targets for the year, more crucial in this are the learner achievement standards and expectations. Parents deserve to know what will be taught, by whom and when so they can measure and assist learners at home. Parents must be able to provide feedback to teachers on a child’s learning progress in home and school.
Accessibility
Although there has been good progress with the delivery of basic services and access to primary services in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, inequality still exist between, among and within districts. About 80% of all our schools in the province have been declared ‘no fee’ paying schools which means they have been given a quintile ranking of between 1 and 3. This internal barometer obtained through the Resource Targeting List process demonstrates the province-specific deprivation indices.
We thank those schools who entered in the 2013 ‘contest’ driven by a belief that in spite of being in a relatively poor resourced areas, they were doing some good work which they could put forward for scrutiny. These schools believed that while they might stand a chance to win the contest, it would be worthwhile experience to be beneficiaries of good advice by the evaluators (adjudicators).
It is important that public institutions are accessible and within reach to customers. It is of great significance that learners are at school, in class and on time for teaching to take place. For this to happen, an organic covenant must be in place between department, communities, stakeholders, parents, learners and teachers -making education a societal issue. Incidences of hunger at school, learners walking long distances to schools, HIV/ AIDS and OVCs are challenges to overcome for effective curriculum delivery to take place.
The issue of poverty is also is a huge impediment to access and is partly addressed in the education system through various measures: (a) Orphans, foster children and those receiving a poverty-linked social grant are exempted from paying fees and in least poor schools poorer parents receive school fees discounts. Poverty upsets the affordability of education, access to education and prospective benefits from education. (b) A poor child is also often a hungry child, and hunger impacts immediately on school attendance and academic performance. The National School Nutrition Programme aimed to foster quality education by, among other things, alleviating short-term hunger and addressing certain micro-nutrient deficiencies in children. (c) Improving the learner achievement rate, in particular quality passes, which to some extent contribute in breaking the cycle of poverty.
One of the devastating impacts of the HIV epidemic is the increase of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) most of whom are of school going age! quarter of South Africa’s 905 453 orphans reside in the province (DSD, 2010). Learners from HIV affected families are more likely to experience depression, post-traumatic stress as well as negative educational outcomes (Cluver, 2011).
The department recognised the importance of promoting good health among learners and has therefore undertaken a range of activities as part of its health promotion programme. A national framework on health and wellness has been developed and aims to improve the understanding of health-related issues among educators and learners. Peer education programmes have been used to educate youth about HIV and AIDS prevention, care, treatment and abstinence. Guidelines for the management and prevention of drug use/abuse by learners in public schools and further education and training institutions were launched and distributed to schools.
Redress
Our call to those manning our front and back offices and in particular those who interface with the public, is a need to appreciate that education is a complex enterprise which is not easy to grasp and hence an expectation of empathy and patience when dealing with stakeholders. What is required at interface level is a public servant who is informed, empathetic, patient to listen and provide proper guidance to customers. In addition, when offices and institutions interface with the public they must demonstrate use simple and acceptable language and be easy to identify. In the final analysis, a uniform acceptable code of behaviour is what should define our workplaces. Our values of honesty, caring, empathy, professionalism, integrity, fairness, excellence, team work and selflessness must be a defining feature of what we are known for.
There is an increasing belief that the ability of some schools to convert school resources into acceptable education outcomes could be linked school management, especially dysfunctional management structures. Furthermore, remarkable differentials in performance among schools in formerly disadvantaged communities suggest that results are highly dependent on effective school management.
The department has identified a number strategic intervention key to improving education governance and management in schools.
These include:
(a) education management capacitation and resourcing initiatives.
(b) improving the school management’s capacity to mediate the curriculum;
(c) Ensuring that principals role as curriculum and instructional leaders is asserted;
(d) ensuring that principals play a prominent role in the regulation of teaching time,
(e) school management engages in monitoring and support for planning and delivery in relation to curriculum coverage
(f) school management play a more prominent role in the procurement and management of books and stationery as well as the quality assurance of tests and the monitoring of results.
Policies that guides us
This Action Plan 2014 is the Department of Basic Education’s strategy to strengthen weak areas in the education systems that were identified as requiring support. It was developed in line with the Presidency’s 2009 National Strategic Planning and draws direction from the guiding document, Improving Government Performance: Our Approach.
By improving performance in specific areas, learners will benefit from a higher quality of education. The nation as a whole will also benefit, as school graduates with better skills and knowledge levels enter further and higher education and the workplace.
Programme Director let me take this opportunity to summarise the Action Plan 2014. The Plan says improvements that can be expected, and further explains what ordinary citizens can do to contribute towards better schooling.
Short-Term Goals, Long-Term Vision
The Action Plan sets out the goals that the national education system will be working towards and the actions to achieve these goals by 2014. These are the first steps towards realising the bigger, longer term vision of quality education in schools by 2025. This vision is called Schooling 2025.
Everyone has a Part to Play
As far as possible, the Action Plan indicates to each stakeholder in the system what activities such stakeholder should be engaged in to realise each goal in the plan. It also suggests ways in which those outside the education system can also provide resources or expertise in support of these goals.
Clear Goals, Flexible Strategies
The Action Plan sets out 13 goals to be achieved, related to learning and enrolment. In addition, it sets out 14 areas in education that need to be improved to reach these goals. The DBE is not, however, telling people exactly what they must do to achieve these goals. The approach is to allow for flexibility so that schools and their communities can come up with strategies that best suit their own situation.
Towards Schooling 2025
Towards Schooling 2025 is a long term plan for the basic education sector which will allow for the monitoring of progress against a set of measurable indicators covering all aspects of basic education including amongst others, enrolments and retention of learners, teachers, infrastructure, school funding, learner well-being and school safety, mass literacy and educational quality.
Making sure that every young South African receives quality schooling is an urgent need. Yet we realise that this cannot be realised overnight. We need a clear vision of where we want to be in 2025, or before then if possible. And we must make sure that every year we move a bit closer to our vision, recognising that a large improvement is an accumulation of many smaller changes.
By 2025 we must see the following in every South African school:
- Learners who attend school every day and are on time because they want to come to school, the school is accessible and because they know that if they miss school when they should not, some action is taken. These learners understand the importance of doing their schoolwork, in school and at home, and they know their school will do everything possible to get them to learn what they should. Much learning happens through the use of computers and from Grade 3 onwards all learners are computer literate. Part of the reason why learners want to come to school is that they get to meet friends in an environment where everyone is respected, they will have a good meal, they know they can depend on their teachers for advice and guidance, and they are able to participate in sporting and cultural activities organised at the school after school hours.
- Teachers, who have received the training they require, are continuously improving their capabilities and are confident in their profession. These teachers understand the importance of their profession for the development of the nation and do their utmost to give their learners a good educational start in life. They are on the whole satisfied with their jobs because their pay and conditions of service in general are decent and similar to what one would find in other professions.
- A school principal who ensures that teaching in the school takes place as it should, according to the national curriculum, but who also understands his or her role as a leader whose responsibility is to promote harmony, creativity and a sound work ethic within the school community and beyond.
- Parents who are well informed about what happens in the school, and receive regular reports about how well their children perform against clear standards that are shared by all schools. These parents know that if something is not happening as it should in the school, the principal or someone in the Department will listen to them and take steps to deal with any problems.
- Learning and teaching materials in abundance and of a high quality. The national Minimum Schoolbag policy, which is widely understood, describes the minimum quantity and quality of materials that every learners must have access to.
- Computers in the school are an important medium through which learners and teachers access information.
- School buildings and facilities that are spacious, functional, safe and well maintained. Learners and teachers look after their buildings and facilities because they take pride in their school.
National Development Plan – Vision 2030 Building a future for South Africa's youth
South Africa has an urbanising, youthful population. This presents an opportunity to boost economic growth, increase employment and reduce poverty. The National Planning Commission (architect of the NDP), recognised that young people bear the brunt of unemployment, and it adopted a "youth lens" in preparing its proposals, which include:
- A nutrition intervention for pregnant women and young children in and out of school.
- Universal access to two years of early childhood development.
- Improve the school system, including increasing the number of students achieving above 50 percent in literacy and mathematics, increasing learner retention rates to 90 percent and bolstering teacher training.
- Strengthen youth service programmes and introduce new, community-based programmes to offer young people life-skills training, entrepreneurship training and opportunities to participate in community development programmes.
- Strengthen and expand the number of further education and training (FET) colleges to increase the participation rate to 25 percent.
- Increase the graduation rate of FET colleges to 75 percent.
- Provide full funding assistance covering tuition, books, accommodation and living allowance to students from poor families.
- Develop community safety centres to prevent crime and include youth in these initiatives.
- A tax incentive to employers to reduce the initial cost of hiring young labour-market entrants.
- A subsidy to the placement sector to identify, prepare and place matric graduates into work. The subsidy will be paid upon successful placement.
- Expand learnerships and make training vouchers directly available to job seekers.
- A formalised graduate recruitment scheme for the public service to attract highly skilled people.
- Expand the role of state-owned enterprises in training artisans and technical professionals.
As a country, progress has been substantial and our history provides many examples of South African coming together to achieve amazing things: These include our democratic transition, our constitution a regular and credible elections.
We still have a lot to do if we are to move towards the inclusive and just society envisaged in our constitution by 2030. Fortunately the challenges that confront us are not insurmountable. The success of this plan will be judged by its ability to change relationships among people, within families, between people and the state and within the state itself. The plan is about bringing about transformation -to achieve a virtuous cycle of confidence and trust a growing economy and expanding opportunities.
To achieve our vision, each South African must make a contribution. Active citizenry requires showing inspirational leadership at all levels of society, Leaders should mobilise communities’ o take charge of their future, raise grievances and assume responsibility for ensuring outcomes achieved.
Conclusion
It is appreciated that some of these schools have consistently been entering for the Service Excellence Awards without despair. These schools have displayed high standards and enthusiasm in implementing the Batho Pele principles. They made well in making sure that all staff members were capacitated and mentored to achieve their set goals and service standards. The service impact of these schools is felt by their surrounding communities and was well displayed through various community initiatives such as gardening projects which benefitted poor families and learners around the school.
Programme Director, I now hand over to you to call upon the nominees and winners in each category.
Thank you!!
