Opening Remarks by the Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Mr Enver Surty, MP at the Minister’s Meeting with District Directors, Sol Plaatje House, Pretoria
Programme Director,
Minister of Basic Education,
Director-General,
DDGs,
District Directors,
Chief Directors,
Officials and staff.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome all district directors to our first meeting in this 2016 academic year.
As the Minister will allude in her address, the districts are at the coalface of service delivery. They are more like our own version of local government, just much better.
Over the years, we have stressed the importance of data driven decision making. We firmly believe that district directors as a vital cog in the school management system need to be able to take informed decisions based on good quality information. To achieve this, managers need to improve their own capacity to (a) analyse such educational data themselves and (b) also manage others who do this work. The development of these skills cannot be achieved overnight and depends on a number of factors.
Most if not all district directors have similar professional responsibilities, but come with diverse academic backgrounds. They are all practitioners in educational management, but many have not received any formal professional training in data use and interpretation. As such they may often not be familiar with data analysis, interpretation, use and presentation.
Their responsibilities may require them to identify past trends, assess present status, and plan for the future. They may also need to gauge the achievements and weaknesses in the education system on a regular basis. This is generally based on data generated at the different levels of planning and administration.
Data from the Statistics South Africa (which the Minister will elaborate on today) is an important analytical tool for decision making. It is a key tool to observe trends, measure disparities and estimate inequalities in educational development. It is therefore important for district directors to have a sound understanding of and solid skills in understanding, interpreting, using and communicating data.
The basic education architecture designates district offices as the local hubs of various Provincial Education Departments (PEDs). They provide vital lines of communication between the provincial head office and the education institutions in their care. They have three main roles:
- To give support
- To require accountability
- To inform and be informed by the public.
It cannot be emphasised enough that in all of this, districts need to be able to take evidence-based decisions. It is therefore clear that the district office as a central hub in the education management picture needs to have the necessary skills to collect, analyse and interpret data on an ongoing basis.
The Department of Basic Education has therefore identified district directors as the critical group who should benefit from capacity building and training.
In this regard, we are steaming ahead with data training for district directors. An initial sample of 30 of the 86 districts was identified to take part in the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) funded training programme which is facilitated and accredited by the University of Stellenbosch. The programme targets two officials in each of the identified districts i.e. the district director and the district data specialist.
The course introduces district directors to basic data management and data analysis skills for use when dealing with large datasets obtained from surveys and examinations. The course is meant to provide district officials with a conceptual understanding of basic procedures for quantitatively exploring and understanding data, using a range of real-world data sets, mainly from South Africa, such as Administration data (SNAP, EMIS, MASTER LIST of SCHOOLS, IQMS, LURITS & SA-SAMS) and Performance data (Matric Examination Results and ANA).
Training has started and is designed to take place in two sessions at the University of Stellenbosch and at the DBE Conference Centre respectively as follows:
- Group one: 15-19 February 2016 and 7-11 March 2016
- Group two: 29 February-4 March 2016 and 4-8 April 2016.
A comprehensive course evaluation and report will be provided at the end of the training. Given the investment that all partners to the agreement (DBE, UNICEF and University of Stellenbosch) have made, an expectation of being able to leverage off previous work must be expected.
We hope that as more district directors are exposed and skilled to engage data, a groundswell of you will be able to interact with the data meaningfully. In turn such acquisition of data skills will improve our understanding of data usage for sectoral-evidence based strategic planning, analysis and monitoring.
Conclusion
In conclusion, let me update you on the Information Communications Technology (ICT) in education. As you may recall, in September last year (2015), the President of the Republic launched the Operation Phakisa ICT in Education Lab.
This marked an overdue turning point in our quest to transform teaching and learning through the appropriate use of ICTs as envisioned by the 2004 White Paper on e-education. We have the final report emanating from the Operation Phakisa process. There are 10 Operation Phakisa specific initiatives that are in progress to deliver on the NDP vision for ICT in education.
To accentuate our work in the ICT area, the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) held a workshop recently to map out the finer details of ICT implementation in education. The workshop focused mainly on the following:
- A development of clear and commonly shared vision for the use of ICT in learning and teaching which can be communicated clearly and succinctly.
- A development of an overarching strategy to bring all work done in the ICT area into reality. The vision must draw on all the available resources across the public education system, the private sector and other government departments.
- The prioritisation of the most impactful initiatives, and ensure that they are delivered quickly and efficiently.
- The determination and allocation of roles and responsibilities to the most appropriately qualified personnel in-order for the sector to reap the benefits of their wisdom.
- Plans to avoid the duplication of effort and ensure that we leverage what already exists, regardless of who conceived the initiative or who owns it.
Finally, the NECT also convened an Education NGO Leadership Summit a few weeks ago. At the Summit various stakeholders in the NGO and private sectors devised strategies for greater impact of the NGO’s work in the basic education space. Speaking at the Summit, my Principal Minister Motshekga put it succinctly when she said:
“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 lofty 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.”
Ladies and Gentlemen I thank you for your attention.
I now hand you over to my Principal, the Basic Education Minister Mrs Angie Motshekga.
