Basic Education Budget Vote Speech for the 2017/18 Financial Year Delivered By the Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Mr Enver Surty, MP, at the National Assembly, Cape Town
Honourable Speaker
Honourable Members and Colleagues
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
In December last year we celebrated twenty years of the proclamation of our Constitution into the supreme law. I was very fortunate and honoured to be part of an extraordinary venture, putting together a book encapsulating the diverse perspectives of the Bill of Rights in the constitution making process.
This book, “Reflections on the Bill of Rights – Theme Committee 4” provided background and anecdotes on this historic event and sought to capture the essence and values enshrined in that Bill of Rights, the cornerstone of our Democracy.
Our President and Deputy President provided the foreword and a chapter, respectively, to the book. In the foreword, President Zuma states, and I quote:
“The Bill of Rights is described in its Preamble as the cornerstone of our democracy. It is underpinned by the values of human dignity, equality and freedom. The choice of these values was conscious and deliberate, given our divided past when the vast majority of our people, blacks in general and Africans in particular, had their dignity violated in multiple ways on a daily basis.” Close quote.
Deputy President Ramaphosa, who dubbed the Constitution as the “Birth Certificate” of our nation, reflected on the values and rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. He correctly stated that, and I quote:
“The liberation struggle was a struggle for human rights and the affirmation, recognition and protection of each South African’s human dignity. It was also about achieving equality for the masses of our people and ensuring the enjoyment of full civil, political and socio-economic rights.” Close quote.
He reminds us that Madiba, precisely twenty three years ago today, while addressing the two Houses of Parliament stated:
“Our definition of freedom of the individual must be instructed by the fundamental objective to restore the human dignity of each and every South African.
This requires that we speak not only of political freedoms.
My government’s commitment to create a people-centred society of liberty binds us to the pursuit of the goals of freedom from want, freedom from hunger, freedom from deprivation, freedom from ignorance, freedom from suppression and freedom from fear.
These freedoms are fundamental to the guarantee of human dignity.”
Significantly the book contains a chapter by Louise Asmal, who recollects how OR Tambo instructed Kader Asmal, Zola Skweyiya, Albie Sachs and other comrades to begin the process of crafting a Bill of Rights. They were requested to pay attention to the African Claims document, the Freedom Charter, and the African Charter of People's Rights and Obligations.
Tomorrow we celebrate Africa Day. It was OR Tambo’s vision of creating a non-racial South Africa, a proudly African identity and a world citizen committed to peace and social justice that was captured in the Freedom Charter. It is the Freedom Charter that eloquently speaks to opening the doors of learning and culture and embedding the right to free basic education which has found expression in section 29 of our Constitution
Given this imperative we had to look closely at the learning environment by ensuring that we provide, among other things, infrastructure that is conducive to teaching and learning.
Honourable Members, the school built environment has gone a long way to improve access, redress and equity in the basic education sector. On our part as Government we are aware that to improve the overall picture of basic education, we must pay particular attention to physical infrastructure.
We know that research has concluded that learners studying in poorly designed schools: “felt that they were a reflection of their school: undervalued, worthless, dirty and uncared for.” Many pieces of educational research show the link between low self-esteem and under-achievement occasioned in part by poor infrastructure.
It is for this reason that both the nine Provincial Education Departments (PEDs) and Basic Education have set aside billions of rands to deliver quality infrastructure in our lifetime.
I am pleased to advise that only last week, I officially opened yet another state of the art school as part of the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI). The Du Noon Primary School is located in a very economically depressed area here in the Western Cape.
I might further add that this is the second school that the ASIDI programme has opened in the same area in the last two years. We are indeed delivering a dividend of democracy to South African children wherever they might be found.
Honourable Members, I am pleased to report that we ended the last financial year with 179 state of the art schools completed. Over and above this, since the programme’s inception, we have connected 306 schools to electricity, provided clean water to 615 schools and dignified sanitation to 425 schools.
This commendable work is set to continue. As I speak to you, we have 70 schools under construction and a further 40 for which the tender processes have been completed, and are about to commence construction shortly.
We can, therefore, safely confirm that we will meet our target of 110 schools for completion by the end of this financial year. I must advise Members that the revised baseline for electricity connection is 535 down from 916 because of a combination of closure of farm schools and the electrification of schools under provincial programmes.
The revised baseline for schools built from inappropriate material is 386 down from the original 510. This is largely because of the rationalisation and mergers exercise undertaken in the Eastern Cape, where the bulk of the challenge lies.
However, the actual schools under the ASIDI programme have increased to 657. What we have done is that schools originally earmarked for construction under the provincial educations departments infrastructure programme have now been roped into the ASIDI programme.
This is good news, as we are now going to build more state of the art schools to benefit a large number of learners across the length and breadth of our country.
As the Minister indicated in her speech, infrastructure delivery, funded through the Education Infrastructure Grant (EIG) and ASIDI – is funded at a total budget of R40.1 billion for the 2017 MTEF period, an increase of 5% from the 2016 MTEF allocation.
In our very first lekgotla, for this current term of office, the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) concluded that to take the basic education sector to greater heights, and to ensure optimal access, redress and equity, we had to adopt the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for administration, learning and teaching.
Our humble resolution was an attempt to bridge the digital divide. Or, to take the giant leap into a digital future as it were.
When we came to this determination, little did we know that we were firmly repositioning the sector for something more exciting and revolutionary. Thus, the quest to place the basic education sector firmly of the 21st century pedestal had begun in earnest.
As an example, we are in an advanced process of providing 130 e-Libraries to schools nationally in this current financial year. If we get our ducks in a row as we should, we will change the lives of 12.9 million learners, over 400 000 teachers in some 25 574 across the country through the roll-out of ICT solutions.
Honourable Speaker, the reality confronting us today is that we can no longer teach the 21st century learners using the run–of–the–mill 20th century methods. The future beckons, and that future is digital - fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.
Scholars say we have entered the stage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. They claim it has multiple possibilities and are amplified by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.
Sadly, Honourable Members, according to the Telecommunication Standardisation Sector (ITU-T) report (2016) South Africa lags behind in terms of fixed broadband, mobile broadband, speed and affordability. We are changing this picture fast.
The basic education sector must become the leading change agent in this revolution. We have to if we hope to be relevant as the basic education sector and ultimately as a country.
Honourable Speaker, today I stand before this House to boldly proclaim that the basic education sector has indeed entered the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, teach, learn and relate to one another.
In its scale, scope, and complexity, the revolutionary transformation of the basic education sector will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, says a Fourth Industrial Revolution pundit, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace.
Moreover, pundits argue that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is disrupting almost every industry in every country. It is in this disruption of things that we find a nugget of opportunities for basic education. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, education and governance.
We do not yet know just how it will all unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.
In response to the scale, and complexity of placing the basic education firmly on the pedestal of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we have through Operation Phakisa mobilised the entire Government, private sector, education stakeholders both local and global, and non-governmental role-players.
Honourable Speaker at the heart of our participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a simple concept: internet access. Internet access is an essential prerequisite for meaningful individual and national participation in South Africa’s knowledge economy, and removing barriers to this access serves broader national socio-economic policy imperatives in line with the government’s National Development Plan (NDP).
In this regard, we are working flat out with the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) and other partners to ensure that that no school pays for connectivity in line with our pro-poor agenda of providing free public schooling. This, Honourable Speaker, is a giant leap towards the much vaunted universal connectivity for all our learners which we intend to realise by 2019.
Consequently, we have made strides in leveraging on ICT, to mitigate challenges of access, redress, equity, inclusivity, efficiency and improving the quality of basic education.
Due to time constraints, I will not be able to report to this House on the entire progress made in this regard. Just to give you a snapshot:
To date, through the South Africa’s Universal Service and Access Obligation (USAO) 125 out of 147 Teacher Resource Centres have been provided with connectivity. Some 3 252 schools have received connectivity through the USAO, and 424 Special Schools are to be connected soon.
We have also provided some 3 252 schools with mobile devices through the USAO project. The National USAO project has provided 3 455 schools with ICT hardware in all provinces.
All schools in the Northern Cape will be provided with the USAO solution soon. This is complemented by provincial ICT initiatives such as Smart Classrooms in the Western Cape and Paperless classrooms in Gauteng.
Digital Content Development
The following progress has been made with regard to digital content development:
- The Learner and teacher components of the DBE cloud are live and the uploading of curated content is in progress (over 580 videos uploaded)
- A CAPS-aligned App page has been developed, with 111 free Educational Apps.
- 60 State-owned digital textbooks are available in English and Afrikaans accessible offline/online.
- The DBE and ETDP SETA have developed broadcasting content for key gateway subjects.
- 210 African Story Books (SAIDE) across 4 levels in 7 South African Languages, were sourced and uploaded on the DBE Website.
- 67.5 hours of revision lessons and 37.5 hours of curriculum lesson notes for Accounting, English (FAL), Life Science and Physical Science were developed.
Digital Content Distribution
The following progress has been made with regard to digital content distribution:
- A list of 111 Educational Apps is available on the DBE Cloud and DBE website.
- 85 Content Access Points was procured for public libraries for the Second Chance Matric Programme.
- Five digital state textbooks for Grade 4 – 6 Mathematics and Grade 11 Technical Math and Technical Science were developed.
- 2,480 digital content packs were distributed to districts and provinces.
- 954 schools and 24 Second Chance Centres were provided with equipment to access the DBE TV Broadcast Channel.
- A further 200 sites are to be deployed this year using Voted Funds and a further 500 using funding from ETDP SETA.
Teacher Professional Development
The following progress has been made with regard to teacher professional development:
- The Professional Development Framework for Digital Learning is complete.
- Thus far, Provincial Education Departments (PEDs) report that 21 468 teachers have been trained (Q3) (NSLA reports).
Finally, we have already hosted a workshop with the Department of Higher Education and Training and Higher Education Institutions on initial ICT training. The DBE and DTPS in partnership with Intel SA have provided ICT training to all provincial and district e-Learning officials in all nine provinces. We have provided ICT Change Management training to 253 Principals in Gauteng and Northern Cape.
Madam Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the Minister for her exceptional leadership, the Chairpersons of the Education Portfolio and Select Committee and its Honourable Members, the MECs of Education and their HoDs, our Director-General, Mr Mathanzima Mweli and his team of Senior Managers, the Chairpersons and CEOs of the SACE, Umalusi and the NECT and their staff, our business and international partners and sponsors, as well as officials in my office for their diligence and support.
We are of course indebt to all the teachers, principals, parents, learners, SGBs, and individuals, for their immense contribution to the basic education sector. Finally, I must thank my family for their unconditional support.
I thank you.
