Deputy Minister,
Director-General,
DDGs,
District Directors,
Chief Directors,
Officials and Staff,
It is always therapeutic to engage with District Directors as they are at the coalface of service delivery. I thank you for honouring this invite to our very first meeting for the 2016 academic year.
Programme Director; the meeting is very important considering that it comes on the back of the recent Basic Education Sector Lekgotla that we convened in January this year.
The Lekgotla was important in that it brought together the best of brains in the sector, including districts to deal head-on with the challenges that we experience together. The social partners and other critical stakeholders could add their voices to the complex conundrum of education delivery.
Programme Director; allow me to share with you the Preliminary Analysis of the 2014 General Household Survey (GHS) to be officially released on the 27th May 2015.
Early Childhood Development
Research confirms that addressing the Early Childhood Development needs of those aged 0–4 years’ pays significant dividends. South Africa has, in this regard; made comprehensive Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes a very important educational priority. The ECD programmes are offered at day-care centres, crèches, playgroups, nursery schools and in pre-primary schools.
At the time of the survey, 34% of the 0–4-year-olds attended these kinds of institutions. Disparities are observed in terms of coverage by province. Approximately 50% of South African children aged 0–4 years attended day-care or educational facilities outside their homes.
The highest attendance was reported in Free State (46, 4%) and Gauteng (46, 0%). More than a quarter of children attended these facilities or centres in Northern Cape (25, 8%). A much lower enrolment was, however, observed amongst children in KwaZulu-Natal (20, 8%) and Northern Cape (25, 8%).
Five Year Olds and Older (Retention)
Nationally, 33, 4% of individuals aged 5 years and older attended an educational institution. Approximately 87% of South African individuals above the age of five years who attended in educational institutions, attended school, while a further 4,9% attended tertiary institutions. By comparison, only 2, 5% of individuals attended further education and training (FET) colleges. Whilst the percentage in this broad age group has not changed, at peak ages of 7-15 years, attendance is almost universal.
Five Year Olds and Older (Dropouts)
Approximately one-quarter (23,5%) of premature school leavers in this age group mentioned ‘a lack of money’ as the reason for not studying, while 17,7% reportedly fell out due to poor academic performance.
The comparable figure is as high as 44, 9% in KwaZulu-Natal. Although 11, 6% of individuals left their studies as a result of family commitments (i.e. getting married, minding children and pregnancy), it is noticeable that a larger percentage of females than males offered this as a reason (21, 8% compared to 1%). Whilst this observation is accurate, the data also suggest that the ‘No fee’ school system and other funding initiatives are beginning to show results.
Pro-poor Policy: No-fee Schools
The percentage of learners who reported that they were exempted from paying tuition fees increased from 0, 4% in 2002 to 65, 4% in 2014. Provincially, 92% of learners in Limpopo and 81, 5% of learners in Eastern Cape attended no-fee schools, compared to 40, 7% of learners in Western Cape and 45, 3% of learners in Gauteng.
Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM)
Learners’ access to textbooks improved during the year of 2014. While just over one-quarter (74, 0%) had access to textbooks in all their subjects at the end of quarter 1 (31 March 2014), almost nine-tenths (80, 4%) had access to textbooks in all their subjects at the end of the school year (quarter 4).
National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP)
There were approximately 14 million learners at school in 2014. Approximately six per cent of them attended private schools. Three-quarters (75, 6%) of learners who attended public schools benefited from school feeding schemes.
Learner Transport
Furthermore, 72, 2% of learners walked to school, while 8% used private vehicles as part of our Learner Transport Policy.
Corporal Punishment
Generally, the percentage of learners who experienced corporal punishment at school in 2014 has decreased nationally since 2011 and 12, 4% of learners’ reportedly experienced corporal punishment at school in 2014.
I am sharing with these preliminary findings of the Statistics South Africa 2014 Household data because it is meant to help us to migrate easily to evidence-based planning, management and policy-making.
Today’s Theme
Programme Director; today’s meeting has been structured and anchored around the theme “Prior year performance review and consolidation of plans” so as to give us the opportunity to get some insights on broad spectrum of issues such as:
- Understanding trends in high-level achievement in Grade 12 achievement in Mathematics and Physical Science;
- Turning poor performing systems around: Lessons from around the world. We are delighted to have among us some of the leading strategists in the world in the form of the McKinsey Group who will share with us critical information on what others are doing in the world to turn around poor performing systems; and
- Model for curriculum management and implementation that will be presented by one of our own in the sector as a way to share best practice to enhance better performance all round.
As this is our first meeting for the academic year 2016 and in line with the sector theme for this period, the meeting will afford District Directors an opportunity to lead discussions to share best practice around the following key areas:
- Focus on National Senior Certificate 2015: Detailed analysis of district performance
- Provincial strategies that have worked in improving performance of individual schools and districts: 2014 – 2015.
Reflections on the Sector plan
The sector plan, namely, Action Plan to 2019 Towards Schooling 2030 takes forward the goals and spirit of the National Development Plan (NDP).
The Action Plan provides:
- A coherent and evidence-based account of the challenges and opportunities facing the sector, aimed at all stakeholders.
- Strategic guidance, drawing from the NDP, to provincial and DBE planners, also non-government actors working with the sector.
- Evidence to South Africa and the world that we take the development of the country’s human resources seriously, that we know what it takes to build a prosperous future that is free from poverty.
The system has persistent and intractable challenges on the following areas:
- Quality,
- Efficiency,
- Accountability.
A thematic approach and performance review should be done to address these challenges.
Practical steps that we are taking to towards the repositioning of the basic education sector include:
- Development of National Norms and Standards,
- Yearly Sector Master Plan,
- Regular Oversight Visits Through Multidisciplinary and Transversal Teams and
- Effective Interprovincial Forums.
Focus on National Senior Certificate 2015
The National Senior Certificate examination remains a high stakes examination in that it:
- Signifies the end of twelve years of formal schooling.
- Determines entry into higher education and the world of work.
- Provides important data that determines future programme development and planning in the sector.
We are now prioritising quality improvements rather than increases in overall pass rates in the NSC examinations. The Class of 2015 entered Grade 1 in 2004, ten years since the dawn of democracy. This was the eighth cohort of learners to sit for the National Senior Certificate (NSC).
The DBE has made considerable progress in improving learner achievement through a number of focused interventions. In 2016 the sector needs to build on these gains by intensifying co-operation and collaboration between the DBE and provinces. It is for this reason that the DBE is currently conducting roadshows across all provinces in a bid to mediate the 2015 NSC Diagnostic and Subject Reports.
The aim of the provincial engagements is to share the NSC results and the diagnostic reports, as well as to ensure that implementation takes place and there is accountability at all levels of the system in order to improve curriculum delivery, curriculum coverage, school-based assessment and learner attainment in the NCS in 2016 and beyond.
The provincial engagements will also provide information and sector expectations to provincial and district officials on how to support schools in a way that this will translate into changes in classroom practice that will, in turn, result in improved learner performance.
This meeting must go a step further from the outcomes of the Basic Education Sector Lekgotla and drill into pedantic details of the district performance analysis and consolidation of plans for 2016 without delay. We must be clear and focus on:
- Schools and subject performance.
- Areas emanating from diagnostic reports that require district focus
- Interventions that can be supported by exemplification of learners’ performance and SBA exemplars.
Interventions in Provinces
Common challenges faced by provinces that did not perform well in the 2015 NSC albeit to varying degrees include:
- Systemic inefficiencies;
- Poor human resource placement and utilisation;
- Slack accountability systems;
- Low expectations of learners by educators and schools; and
- Possible erosion of confidence in the system.
We have until now conducted provincial engagements with every level of education management in the three provinces, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape. The engagements took place on the following dates:
- Limpopo: 1 and 25 February 2016
- KwaZulu-Natal: 9 and 10 February 2016
- Eastern Cape: 8 and 9 March 2016
The intention of the engagements was to honestly identify the key challenges in the key strategic areas identified and develop strategies and timelines to address them.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by re-emphasising the need to get the basics right. Unless we do so we can forget about improving the Matric pass rate, let alone the issue of improving numeracy/literacy among our learners.
Programme Director; allow me to restate our “back to basics” approach. The basics are clear – PEDs must deliver LTSM (to all schools to cover all learners) on time. Critical vacancies must be filled before the school year resumes. All learners at the very least deserve to have a teacher in front of them for at least 200 schooling days a year.
This reminds me of our Memorandum of Understanding with TeachSA. The agreement provides for TeachSA to make available to us ambassadors – these are a rare breed of graduates in gateway subjects such as Mathematics, Physical Science, English and Accounting. Although they do not have a teaching qualification yet, they are ready to be deployed in schools.
I must say the response of some Districts has been disheartening. In one district all ambassadors were sent back because one manager said: “Hhayi these are Vendas, we cannot guarantee their safety”.
I appeal to all of you to take advantage of this ambassador programme so as to ease the burden of vacant critical posts.
Once we have managed this process of getting the right teacher in front of learners, the next logical step is improving the quality of teaching.
I thank you.
