Keynote address by the Deputy Minister Surty, MP at a Breakfast Meeting hosted by Sun International and New Africa Education Foundation held at Sibaya Casino, Durban, 29 March 2016
“A partnership that works”
Programme Director,
Sun International Senior Management,
Sibaya Community Trustees,
New Africa Education Foundation Senior Management,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Distinguished Guests,
It is my singular honour and privilege to address this important breakfast meeting hosted by Sun International and Sibaya Community Trust in partnership with the New Africa Education Foundation.
Programme Director; today’s event is important on two fronts, firstly to acknowledge and appreciate the contributions made by our partners in education. Secondly, to assure you that this Government remains committed to partnerships that work and actually improve the lives of our learners and teachers.
In fact, the National Development Plan (NDP) enjoins us to build partnerships for education reform and improved quality. It acknowledges that:
“Many corporate foundations, faith-based foundations have offered their expertise as part of a national initiative to support schools to improve learning outcomes.”
The NDP is alive to the challenge of coordination in our interface with the NGO sector in particular and corporate foundations in general. It therefore exhorts us to devise,
“A more focused approach [to partnerships], and inter-sectoral co-operations.”
In her address to the recent Education NGO Leadership Summit, the Basic Education Minister Mrs Angie Motshekga said:
“The reality of the situation is that we are unable as Government alone to yank the basic education from its current morass hence the need for partnerships and private sector investment in education.”
Programme Director; it is within this context that we honoured today’s invite to cement our partnership. This partnership is special in that in addresses one of key the deliverables for this current term of office i.e. focuses on Maths, Science and Technology.
One of the critical targets in the NDP is the call to increase the number of learners being eligible for a Bachelors programmes with Maths and Science by 450 000.
MST Strategy
In this regard, the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) has since approved the Mathematics, Science and Technology (MST) Sector Plan pronouncing national and provincial targets to increase the number of learners doing Mathematics.
We have subsequently issued out a directive that schools that were not offering Mathematics should, with effect from last year (2015), incrementally offer the subject in Grade 10 as an option between Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy.
We are working relentlessly to promote the Mathematics and Physical Science subject choice combination; as a way to increase learner participation in pure Maths. This of course will significantly improve the learners’ chances of further education and training post-matric.
Radical Short-Term MST – the 1+4 Model
With the release of the 2014 ANA results, it became evident that the sector needed to craft a strategic response after the results showed that the Grade 9 Mathematics performance was unacceptably low average of 10.7%. After a series of engagements within the sector at the highest level we developed a Framework for improving Learner Performance in the Senior Phase.
In this regard, we agreed on 27 key activities and introduced the 1+4 Model. While the model is bold and radical, in practise it is quite simple – all Maths teachers receive high level training on Monday’s for the content that they will immediately teach that very same week. We are confident that this radical step will go a long way in improving Mathematics performance in the Senior Phase.
New MST Grant
As part of the review of the implementation of the MST strategy, the Department has disestablished the Dinaledi and Technical Secondary Schools conditional grants. Instead, we launched the new Maths, Science and Technology conditional grant in 2015.
The MST conditional grant was introduced from 2015/16 with a total of R1.1 billion over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) - (R352.2 million in 2015/16, R367.7 million in 2016/17 and R390.7 million in 2017/18).
The purpose of the new grant is to strengthen the implementation of the National Development Plan 2030 and the Action Plan 2019: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2030 by increasing the number of learners taking Mathematics, Sciences and Technology subjects, improving the success rates in the subjects and improving teachers’ capabilities. The grant will achieve its purpose through the provision of support and resources to schools, teachers and learners for the improvement of Mathematics, Sciences and Technology teaching and learning at selected public schools.
The grant will also provide ICT resources to schools, ensure teacher training especially at senior phase is accelerated and targeted learner support is prioritised to improve success and participation in MST subjects.
Call for Partnerships
As we know, this is not enough to achieve the desired wall-to-wall coverage, hence our appeal to the private sector for both monetary and non-monetary assistance. We are in this together. Our children deserve quality education today.
Programme Director, we have noted that Sun International and Sibaya Community Trust have spent over Three Million Rands in various educational projects over the past year, facilitated and implemented by the New Africa Education Foundation. What delights us the most is that these contributions were made to assist one of the DBE’s top priorities which is to improve Maths and Science in underprivileged schools.
We have also noted your commitment to further contribute Nine Million Rands to assist with educational resources in one of the worst performing districts in this province, namely iLembe District.
In conclusion, and on behalf of the Ministry of Basic Education, we wish to express our gratitude to this tripartite alliance of Sun International, Sibaya Community Trust and New Africa Education Foundation. We reassure you that your investment in basic education is indeed a wise one.
Lastly, allow me to extend a word of thanks to all volunteers and staff at these partners who work daily and effortlessly to change the lives of our learners.
I thank you.
