Address by the Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga, MP, at the Education NGO Leadership Summit held at the Kopanong Hotel and Conference Centre, Benoni
Programme Director
Deputy Minister of Basic Education: Mr Enver Surty
NECT Chairperson: Mr. Sizwe Nxasana
NECT Chief Executive Officer: Mr. Godwin Khosa,
Prof John Volmink (NECT M&E Advisory Committee)
Zenex Foundation CEO: Ms Gail Campbell
NGOs Sector Leadership
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is indeed my singular honour and a privilege to be asked to deliver a keynote address at this Education NGO Leadership Summit. This summit is crucial in that it grapples with an important subject of how the NGO sector can play a meaningful role in supporting us – (in the basic education) to implement the precepts of the National Development Plan (NDP) in Education.
The 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.”
Programme Director, 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.
Addressing the 2014 National Teachers Awards, President Jacob Zuma put it succinctly when he said:
“Education is a societal issue and requires all sectors and communities to work together.”
We have in the basic education sector what seems to be a mammoth task. The governing party, the ANC in its 53rd National Conference held in Mangaung resolved amongst others that:
- “All measures must be taken to strengthen the basic education sector to provide more opportunities for young people as well as increasing retention, progression, and completion rates in the basic education sector.”
- It is no brainer that at present our retention, progression and completion rates are not where they should be. Despite this, I am an eternal optimist. I believe that we can cross our own Rubicon only if we stand and work together collaboratively not in competition and/or in silos.
I must admit that a lot has been done in this regard. However, it is all work in progress; indeed more must still be done hence this summit.
In response to the challenge of, “a more focused approach and inter-sectoral co-operations,” we launched the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) on the 16th of July 2013.
The NECT is an organisation dedicated to strengthening partnerships among business, civil society, government and labour in order to achieve the education goals of the National Development Plan. As we know, it strives both to support and influence the agenda for reform of basic education.
To demonstrate our seriousness in this collaboration, in our 2015/16 Budget Vote, we made available over R200 million bringing the total allocation over the over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) to R326 million. This allocation is to support the work of the NECT for a range of programmes that seek to unlock the potential of the basic education sector as a whole.
In this regard, Programme Director I must commend the NECT for the great work they do in the sector. The mere fact that today we have this summit is a testimony of the tenacity of the NECT leadership.
Programme Director, today, I want to argue that the most effective partnerships are where partners not only enrich each other but also find ways where they can mutually benefit. Our singular goal for any partnerships in education is to create space for social partners and the business community to assist in realising the achievement of Delivery Outcome 1 i.e. “Improved Quality of Basic Education.”
To achieve quality education in our lifetime, we need to develop and construct an entirely new paradigm and practice of collaboration that supersedes the traditional silos. Achieving the loft goals of the NDP requires teamwork, partnerships, and collaboration. We need an entire army of NGOs and private companies to learn to work in the basic education space collaboratively and without duplication, and/or competition.
I must be honest I hate small scale interventions popularly known as pilots. These pilots are dime a dozen in our sector but their impact is minimal if not dismal. These pilots, at times, duplicate the effort of government and other partners. There is nothing that gets my goat than a proposal for a pilot project targeting three schools in Limpopo when I have 25 000 schools nationally to deal with.
Programme Director; let share with you a case study of the real meaning of partnerships for progress that we have had recently in the basic education sector.
On the 16th of February this year, I was at Zimasa Primary School, in Langa, Western Cape to launch the National School Deworming Programme. What soothed my heart is the fact that over a period of two years we mobilised over a dozen local and international NGOs, United Nations agencies and both local and international scientists from various universities. In this case, let me mention the following:
1. United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
2. Partnership for Child Development (PCD), a London-based non-profit organisation
3. World Health Organisation (WHO)
4. Johnson and Johnson
5. Medical Research Council, Medicines Control Council (MCC)
6. Local Departments of Water and Sanitation, Health, Social Development, and Kenyan Education Department,
As a result of this collaboration and partnerships, we were able to secure the donation of 7 million Mebendazole 500 mg tablets to be used in the national deworming programme that had a universal coverage from day one. The targeted cohort was to reach all Grade R-7 learners in quintile 1-3 primary schools - Ladies and Gentlemen that means 6 million learners were covered through this initiative.
Programme Director, this is the kind of impact we need to have in the sector whether we speak about Curriculum Development and Implementation; Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, Teacher Training and Development, and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) rollout amongst others.
As I said, I am an eternal optimist. To deliberately misquote my colleague Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan: “I have a simple message. We are strong enough, resilient enough and creative enough to manage and overcome our challenges in the basic education sector.”
All of us want learners who are engaged in learning, teachers who spent time on task, and parents who attend and participate in the School Governing Bodies.
We all want all schools to the part of the Schools that Work - Model Schools where the bell rings at seven in the morning and learning and teaching happens for at least seven hours. We want learners who graduate from our schools to have mustered the three Rs of basic education i.e. Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic.
We imagine our high school graduates as future productive members of society running thriving businesses, helping this country to deal once and for all with the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
As Minister Gordhan said: "All of us want a new values paradigm, a society at peace with itself, a nation energised by the task of building stronger foundations for our future society and economy.”
I wish you all the best in your deliberations. I caution that discussions must be frank, honest and robust.
I thank you.
