Date: 16/03/2004
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: K Asmal: Cape Town Press Club
ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR KADER ASMAL, MP, MINISTER OF EDUCATION, TO THE CAPE TOWN PRESS CLUB, 16 March 2004
It is a pleasure, and an honour, once again to address the Cape Town Press Club. I have been asked to speak about education, which I will do. But I hope you would not mind if I first say a few words about the press.
Over the years, I have had a wonderful and strange relationship with the press. As you all must know by now, I regard newspapers as an interactive medium. When they write about me, I like to write back. This interaction with newspapers flows from my profound respect for the press - my respect for the freedom, vitality, and integrity of the press. But sometimes - I have to say - I am truly shocked by the quality of our interaction.
Recently, driving through Durban, my car was hit by bullets. My niece, who was in the car, and my ministerial spokesperson tried to assure people that the incident was not political. It was not an attempted assassination. We said that the shooting was not political because we did not want the incident to become a flashpoint for political violence in a region in which serious and sensitive political tensions have led to violence in the past.
An editorial in The Star turned all of this around - turned all of this upside down. To claim that we were saying that such an act of violence - people shooting in the streets - was just a normal, everyday feature of South African life, as if we were uncaring and complacent about the "ordinary" crime and violence in our society.
Although the editor of The Star said he was happy that I was not hurt, he nevertheless claimed that I lacked any human concern for the well being of ordinary citizens in South Africa.
Bordering on defamation, this editorial was perverse. It is like that old joke from the 1980s - Archbishop Desmond Tutu was seen walking on water and the next day the headline read, "Archbishop Tutu Cannot Swim".
I do not know why the metaphor "dog" is used so often with reference to the press. The press is the "watchdog" over government. Yes, the press can certainly be a watchdog. The press should never be the "lapdog" of government. Yes, the press should never be a lapdog.
But what about the vicious dogs, sleeping dogs, and old dogs that cannot learn new tricks? Are those dogs still hanging around the newsroom? They seem to be dogging our every step.
Every dog must have its day, as the saying goes, so I suppose that every daily must have its dog.
As journalists, in your dogged determination to get the story, to get to the truth, you can never just run with the pack. And you cannot allow the pack mentality - with its frenzy for feeding - to run you. That is the integrity of journalism. That is the integrity of journalism that I respect.
Call to Action
But I have been asked to speak about education: On 27 July 1999, after only a few weeks on the job as Minister of Education, I issued a "Call to Action" that identified nine priorities for education. A few months later, I outlined those priorities, with great enthusiasm, when I addressed the Cape Town Press Club.
Five years later, it might be useful to reflect on our substantial achievements, as well as our continuing challenges, in addressing the priorities we identified. Whoever might be the next Minister of Education will need to look back over this road we have travelled in order to chart our course in education for the next five years.
First, we identified the priority of co-operative government. We must make our provincial systems of education work, we said, by making co-operative government work.
Constitutionally, the governance of our educational system is a federal model. We have a national department, which sets norms and standards, and nine provincial departments responsible for implementation. Getting this system up and running in the first place was a tremendous accomplishment, since we had to merge eighteen separate departments into one and then get that one national department to relate to new departments in nine new provinces.
The structure of this arrangement, however, has sometimes made me feel that the national Minister of Education is like a court eunuch who carries all the responsibility, but none of the power. Where the national department does have direct responsibility, such as in higher education, we have been able to intervene directly and effectively. But in other areas such direct intervention has not been possible.
Having lived with this arrangement for five years, I suggested recently that we should review our model of co-operative governance. That simple suggestion, however, was misrepresented in the press as if I were demanding the abolition of provincial departments of education.
Over the past five years, the Council of Education Ministers, where national education regularly intersects with provincial departments, has become a vital forum for strategy and action. More recently, we have had productive and promising conversations with local government authorities - South African Local Government Association (SALGA), the City Council of Cape Town, and others - to explore extending co-operative governance to the local level.
When I call for a review of co-operative governance, therefore, I am calling for strengthening the co-operation we have been developing over the past five years.
Second, we said that we must break the back of illiteracy among adults and youths in five years.
In meeting this priority, Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) has been crucial. We have established 2 371 ABET centres, involving 210 569 adult learners in a variety of programmes in business management, agriculture, and applied technology. Together with a range of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and statutory partners, the South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI) has been able to advance literacy delivery.
As a result of these combined efforts, departmental literacy projects have reached nearly 2 million learners. Certainly, these efforts must be intensified, but we are making real progress in breaking the back of illiteracy.
Third, we said that schools must become centres of community life.
We introduced democratic participation in school governance, enabling school governing bodies (SGBs) to become the breeding ground of democracy at the local level. There has never before been such scope for participating in the community life of our schools. There is more scope for participation in the life of our school communities than anywhere else in the world.
Everything depends, of course, on what we mean by "community". I notice, for example, that the election manifesto of the Freedom Front claims to advance the interests of Afrikaners by opposing the "artificial combination of different communities" in our schools. This assertion of a certain kind of "community", which, fortunately, is so rarely heard ten years after democracy, takes us back to apartheid rather than forward to the inclusive sense of community that were are nurturing in our schools.
Creating an inclusive school community, affirming unity in diversity, has informed everything we have done in our Values in Education Initiative - identifying values, addressing racism, revitalising history, practising multi-lingualism, clarifying the role of religion, and advancing the Safe Schools programme, which deals with drugs, guns, sexual abuse, and other risks.
Fourth, we said that we must end conditions of physical degradation in South African schools.
In his State of the Nation address in 2003, President Thabo Mbeki called upon us to solve the problem of students studying under trees. This year we could report that we had solved that problem in all formally registered schools.
This was not because, as some wag in the newsroom might say, all the trees had died, or been stolen, or been dug up as alien vegetation by the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry. No: We have been providing real infrastructure for our schools.
Since 1996, we have provided over 50 000 classrooms, over 2 500 water connections, over 60 000 toilets - we could go on with the impressive statistics of delivery. However, backlogs remain. We still find unsuitable and unsafe learning conditions in many of the poorest of our schools.
Here the national Minister of Education is also something of a eunuch, taking the blame for the physical condition of our schools, but lacking the authority or budget to do anything about it. This is another area of co-operative governance in education that needs review. A Minister of Education might need more leverage than can be provided only by moral authority. I note, however, that the Schools Act gives the Minister the responsibility to ensure adequate accommodation for students. We need to explore ways of giving that responsibility greater force, other than the requirement that the MECs provide the Minister with annual reports on administration.
In April, as we vote, over 6 500 of our polling stations will be schools. Some of those schools have no electricity; some have no water or sanitation. Under ordinary conditions, this lack of facilities is unacceptable. As we prepare for our election, however, we should recognise this lack of infrastructure in our schools as a matter of urgency that needs our immediate attention. As the Electoral Commission (IEC) makes temporary arrangements in those schools, we urge that resources be deployed to make that provision of electricity, water, and sanitation permanent.
Fifth, we said we must develop the professional quality of our teaching force.
We have improved the qualifications of thousands of unqualified and under-qualified teachers. We have recognised quality teaching through our annual National Teaching Awards.
We still face the challenge of consolidating quality teaching and learning by ensuring that no teacher is under-qualified by the end of our second decade of freedom. The implementation of the Integrated Quality Management System, including Whole School Evaluation, will be an important part of this ongoing effort to ensure that we have a high-quality professional teaching force. We have also established a Ministerial Committee of two university experts to develop a teacher education and development framework.
As elsewhere in the world, we have seen a decline in students pursuing the teaching profession. We have mounted educational "road shows" to recruit teachers, workshops for prospective teachers, and we are developing bursaries, linked to service, as incentives to become teachers.
We know we have good teachers. We know this because they are poached in the thousands by other countries. But we also know this because of the results we see from their dedication and excellence.
Sixth, we said we must ensure the success of active learning through outcomes-based education.
I have no sympathy for educational fundamentalists - whether OBE fundamentalists or "back to basics" fundamentalists. Our curriculum, which focuses on outcomes, is coherent enough to provide guidance for teachers, flexible enough to allow room for creativity, and simple enough to actually work.
I notice that an opposition political party has called for a review of the curriculum to simplify it and provide guidelines for teachers. That party does not seem to have noticed that we have already done that. We reviewed Curriculum 2005 in 2000. We streamlined the curriculum on the basis of that review to produce the Revised National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for Grades R through 9, which is being implemented in Grades R through 3 this year. We transformed the Senior Secondary School curriculum through the NCS Grades 10 through 12. This was for the first time in decades that the curriculum has been changed fundamentally.
If you have not read the Revised National Curriculum Statement, I recommend it. A Constitution, as Albie Sachs once said, is the "autobiography of a nation". Reading this curriculum, I believe, we catch a glimpse of the future autobiography of our nation in the making.
Seventh, we said we must create a vibrant Further Education and Training (FET) system to equip youth and adults to meet the social and economic needs of the 21st century.
We restructured the Further Education and Training college sector - from 152 single-campus colleges to 50 multi-campus colleges - in order to accelerate the development of medium- and high-level skills. We are currently developing a curriculum framework for colleges to meet these needs.
We are well aware of the challenges we face in scarce skills needed for social and economic development. In order to meet this goal, we must increase the number of students passing Grade 12 with Mathematics and Science, provide greater access to information and communication technology, and increase the number of students enrolling at our public Further Education and Training colleges.
We have seen tangible progress in this area through the participation of NGOs, provincial departments, and business. One example of a public-private partnership is the Dineledi Schools. Meaning "stars" in SeSotho, the Dineledi schools - sponsored by the Anglo American Chairman's Fund - have enabled learners from disadvantaged background to reach for the stars in Mathematics, Science and Technology. In the future, we can only hope to see more examples of corporate social investment in developing our most precious human resources.
Eighth, we said we must implement a rational, seamless higher education system that grasps intellectual and professional challenges facing South Africans in the 21st century.
Now that we have in place a comprehensive national plan for higher education, we have taken on the challenge of implementing the plan in earnest, including taking to its logical conclusion the process of merging 36 institutions into 21 new institutions and transforming academic programmes.
This year, we saw the coming into being of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the new Unisa (University of South Africa), North West University, and the Tshwane University of Technology. Reports from these new merged universities indicate that, although there have been challenges, the process of creating truly South African universities is well under way.
Ninth, we said we must deal urgently and purposefully with the HIV/AIDS emergency in and through the education and training system.
We are all aware that HIV/AIDS is a serious crisis for the health, lives, and well being of our people. The Nelson Mandela Foundation/Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Report on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in our country gave a sobering profile of the threat to our national health. But the report also gave us hope that our educational efforts are having an effect: 84 percent of our people between the ages of 12 and 24 had learned about the causes and prevention of HIV/AIDS in our schools.
We have fully integrated education about HIV/AIDS into our curriculum. Recently, I set up a team of experts, under the auspices of the ELRC, led by Dr Olive Shisana of the HSRC to investigate the human resource issues of teacher supply and demand, with special attention to the prevalence and consequences of HIV and AIDS. This research should help us not only in planning for human resource development but also in responding to the human tragedy of HIV/AIDS.
Conclusion
By working together - Tirisano - we have come a long way in education. As we review our progress over the past five years and celebrate our ten years of freedom and democracy, we need to remember the extraordinary damage that was done to us in the past by the previous educational system.
Christian National Education, which was neither Christian, nor national, nor truly educational, contributed to the militarisation and polarisation of our society. Bantu Education, which was designed to cripple our people, left lingering wounds in our society.
All of our efforts must be directed towards recovering from the damage that was done in the name of education.
This year, in celebrating our ten years of freedom, the Department of Education has planned many events. On 31 March we are holding a celebration in Cape Town at the Centre for the Book - "Keeping Memory Alive, Shaping Our Future - at which we will remember our past and introduce a wide range of exciting new publications for teaching and learning about our history.
On another occasion, we will be conducting hearings on the damaging effects of apartheid education. Already, testimony has been coming in to the department from people who have been working to recover from the damage caused by education under apartheid. Other events are planned, all designed to focus attention on our extraordinary challenges and achievements in emerging from the dark days of apartheid.
As Minister of Education, visiting schools, I regularly meet with young people who give me hope. They are the vital signs of our recovery from apartheid education. Sometimes, they show real insight into our political processes that we do not always see displayed by journalists.
Recently, when I was visiting a school in KwaZulu-Natal, a Grade 10 student asked me: "How can newspapers report that there will be three Deputy Presidents, when the Constitution says there is only one?"
Another Grade 10 student asked me: "When the newspapers speculate about who might be the next Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, don't they know that only candidates on provincial lists, regulated by the IEC, can become the premier of a province?"
And another Grade 10 student wondered: "Why do newspapers repeat each other's stories? Why does one newspaper believe what another newspaper says?"
These are vital signs, I am convinced, that our curriculum is working to encourage critical thinking. In the past, the educational model that was imposed on us was based on trying to stuff our heads with facts. Now we are teaching pupils to think, to develop their capacities for critical thinking and creative imagination. These skills will be necessary for them to participate fully in our changing society and globalising economy in the twenty-first century.
As I look back over my time as Minister of Education, I find that the nine priorities that we identified in 1999 are still our priorities for education today.
The fact that our priorities of five years ago remain our priorities today should not be taken to mean that we have failed to meet these challenges. It means that they were the right priorities. These areas define our enduring challenges in creating and sustaining an efficient, effective, and quality system of education to meet the needs of our people and open the future for our society.
In his State of the Nation Address in 2004, President Thabo Mbeki stated boldly, and I believe rightly, that we now have the right policies in place. I am convinced that we have the right policies in place for education.
Whoever is the next Minister of Education will be able to build on a solid foundation.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Education
16 March 2004
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: K Asmal: Cape Town Press Club
ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR KADER ASMAL, MP, MINISTER OF EDUCATION, TO THE CAPE TOWN PRESS CLUB, 16 March 2004
It is a pleasure, and an honour, once again to address the Cape Town Press Club. I have been asked to speak about education, which I will do. But I hope you would not mind if I first say a few words about the press.
Over the years, I have had a wonderful and strange relationship with the press. As you all must know by now, I regard newspapers as an interactive medium. When they write about me, I like to write back. This interaction with newspapers flows from my profound respect for the press - my respect for the freedom, vitality, and integrity of the press. But sometimes - I have to say - I am truly shocked by the quality of our interaction.
Recently, driving through Durban, my car was hit by bullets. My niece, who was in the car, and my ministerial spokesperson tried to assure people that the incident was not political. It was not an attempted assassination. We said that the shooting was not political because we did not want the incident to become a flashpoint for political violence in a region in which serious and sensitive political tensions have led to violence in the past.
An editorial in The Star turned all of this around - turned all of this upside down. To claim that we were saying that such an act of violence - people shooting in the streets - was just a normal, everyday feature of South African life, as if we were uncaring and complacent about the "ordinary" crime and violence in our society.
Although the editor of The Star said he was happy that I was not hurt, he nevertheless claimed that I lacked any human concern for the well being of ordinary citizens in South Africa.
Bordering on defamation, this editorial was perverse. It is like that old joke from the 1980s - Archbishop Desmond Tutu was seen walking on water and the next day the headline read, "Archbishop Tutu Cannot Swim".
I do not know why the metaphor "dog" is used so often with reference to the press. The press is the "watchdog" over government. Yes, the press can certainly be a watchdog. The press should never be the "lapdog" of government. Yes, the press should never be a lapdog.
But what about the vicious dogs, sleeping dogs, and old dogs that cannot learn new tricks? Are those dogs still hanging around the newsroom? They seem to be dogging our every step.
Every dog must have its day, as the saying goes, so I suppose that every daily must have its dog.
As journalists, in your dogged determination to get the story, to get to the truth, you can never just run with the pack. And you cannot allow the pack mentality - with its frenzy for feeding - to run you. That is the integrity of journalism. That is the integrity of journalism that I respect.
Call to Action
But I have been asked to speak about education: On 27 July 1999, after only a few weeks on the job as Minister of Education, I issued a "Call to Action" that identified nine priorities for education. A few months later, I outlined those priorities, with great enthusiasm, when I addressed the Cape Town Press Club.
Five years later, it might be useful to reflect on our substantial achievements, as well as our continuing challenges, in addressing the priorities we identified. Whoever might be the next Minister of Education will need to look back over this road we have travelled in order to chart our course in education for the next five years.
First, we identified the priority of co-operative government. We must make our provincial systems of education work, we said, by making co-operative government work.
Constitutionally, the governance of our educational system is a federal model. We have a national department, which sets norms and standards, and nine provincial departments responsible for implementation. Getting this system up and running in the first place was a tremendous accomplishment, since we had to merge eighteen separate departments into one and then get that one national department to relate to new departments in nine new provinces.
The structure of this arrangement, however, has sometimes made me feel that the national Minister of Education is like a court eunuch who carries all the responsibility, but none of the power. Where the national department does have direct responsibility, such as in higher education, we have been able to intervene directly and effectively. But in other areas such direct intervention has not been possible.
Having lived with this arrangement for five years, I suggested recently that we should review our model of co-operative governance. That simple suggestion, however, was misrepresented in the press as if I were demanding the abolition of provincial departments of education.
Over the past five years, the Council of Education Ministers, where national education regularly intersects with provincial departments, has become a vital forum for strategy and action. More recently, we have had productive and promising conversations with local government authorities - South African Local Government Association (SALGA), the City Council of Cape Town, and others - to explore extending co-operative governance to the local level.
When I call for a review of co-operative governance, therefore, I am calling for strengthening the co-operation we have been developing over the past five years.
Second, we said that we must break the back of illiteracy among adults and youths in five years.
In meeting this priority, Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) has been crucial. We have established 2 371 ABET centres, involving 210 569 adult learners in a variety of programmes in business management, agriculture, and applied technology. Together with a range of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and statutory partners, the South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI) has been able to advance literacy delivery.
As a result of these combined efforts, departmental literacy projects have reached nearly 2 million learners. Certainly, these efforts must be intensified, but we are making real progress in breaking the back of illiteracy.
Third, we said that schools must become centres of community life.
We introduced democratic participation in school governance, enabling school governing bodies (SGBs) to become the breeding ground of democracy at the local level. There has never before been such scope for participating in the community life of our schools. There is more scope for participation in the life of our school communities than anywhere else in the world.
Everything depends, of course, on what we mean by "community". I notice, for example, that the election manifesto of the Freedom Front claims to advance the interests of Afrikaners by opposing the "artificial combination of different communities" in our schools. This assertion of a certain kind of "community", which, fortunately, is so rarely heard ten years after democracy, takes us back to apartheid rather than forward to the inclusive sense of community that were are nurturing in our schools.
Creating an inclusive school community, affirming unity in diversity, has informed everything we have done in our Values in Education Initiative - identifying values, addressing racism, revitalising history, practising multi-lingualism, clarifying the role of religion, and advancing the Safe Schools programme, which deals with drugs, guns, sexual abuse, and other risks.
Fourth, we said that we must end conditions of physical degradation in South African schools.
In his State of the Nation address in 2003, President Thabo Mbeki called upon us to solve the problem of students studying under trees. This year we could report that we had solved that problem in all formally registered schools.
This was not because, as some wag in the newsroom might say, all the trees had died, or been stolen, or been dug up as alien vegetation by the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry. No: We have been providing real infrastructure for our schools.
Since 1996, we have provided over 50 000 classrooms, over 2 500 water connections, over 60 000 toilets - we could go on with the impressive statistics of delivery. However, backlogs remain. We still find unsuitable and unsafe learning conditions in many of the poorest of our schools.
Here the national Minister of Education is also something of a eunuch, taking the blame for the physical condition of our schools, but lacking the authority or budget to do anything about it. This is another area of co-operative governance in education that needs review. A Minister of Education might need more leverage than can be provided only by moral authority. I note, however, that the Schools Act gives the Minister the responsibility to ensure adequate accommodation for students. We need to explore ways of giving that responsibility greater force, other than the requirement that the MECs provide the Minister with annual reports on administration.
In April, as we vote, over 6 500 of our polling stations will be schools. Some of those schools have no electricity; some have no water or sanitation. Under ordinary conditions, this lack of facilities is unacceptable. As we prepare for our election, however, we should recognise this lack of infrastructure in our schools as a matter of urgency that needs our immediate attention. As the Electoral Commission (IEC) makes temporary arrangements in those schools, we urge that resources be deployed to make that provision of electricity, water, and sanitation permanent.
Fifth, we said we must develop the professional quality of our teaching force.
We have improved the qualifications of thousands of unqualified and under-qualified teachers. We have recognised quality teaching through our annual National Teaching Awards.
We still face the challenge of consolidating quality teaching and learning by ensuring that no teacher is under-qualified by the end of our second decade of freedom. The implementation of the Integrated Quality Management System, including Whole School Evaluation, will be an important part of this ongoing effort to ensure that we have a high-quality professional teaching force. We have also established a Ministerial Committee of two university experts to develop a teacher education and development framework.
As elsewhere in the world, we have seen a decline in students pursuing the teaching profession. We have mounted educational "road shows" to recruit teachers, workshops for prospective teachers, and we are developing bursaries, linked to service, as incentives to become teachers.
We know we have good teachers. We know this because they are poached in the thousands by other countries. But we also know this because of the results we see from their dedication and excellence.
Sixth, we said we must ensure the success of active learning through outcomes-based education.
I have no sympathy for educational fundamentalists - whether OBE fundamentalists or "back to basics" fundamentalists. Our curriculum, which focuses on outcomes, is coherent enough to provide guidance for teachers, flexible enough to allow room for creativity, and simple enough to actually work.
I notice that an opposition political party has called for a review of the curriculum to simplify it and provide guidelines for teachers. That party does not seem to have noticed that we have already done that. We reviewed Curriculum 2005 in 2000. We streamlined the curriculum on the basis of that review to produce the Revised National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for Grades R through 9, which is being implemented in Grades R through 3 this year. We transformed the Senior Secondary School curriculum through the NCS Grades 10 through 12. This was for the first time in decades that the curriculum has been changed fundamentally.
If you have not read the Revised National Curriculum Statement, I recommend it. A Constitution, as Albie Sachs once said, is the "autobiography of a nation". Reading this curriculum, I believe, we catch a glimpse of the future autobiography of our nation in the making.
Seventh, we said we must create a vibrant Further Education and Training (FET) system to equip youth and adults to meet the social and economic needs of the 21st century.
We restructured the Further Education and Training college sector - from 152 single-campus colleges to 50 multi-campus colleges - in order to accelerate the development of medium- and high-level skills. We are currently developing a curriculum framework for colleges to meet these needs.
We are well aware of the challenges we face in scarce skills needed for social and economic development. In order to meet this goal, we must increase the number of students passing Grade 12 with Mathematics and Science, provide greater access to information and communication technology, and increase the number of students enrolling at our public Further Education and Training colleges.
We have seen tangible progress in this area through the participation of NGOs, provincial departments, and business. One example of a public-private partnership is the Dineledi Schools. Meaning "stars" in SeSotho, the Dineledi schools - sponsored by the Anglo American Chairman's Fund - have enabled learners from disadvantaged background to reach for the stars in Mathematics, Science and Technology. In the future, we can only hope to see more examples of corporate social investment in developing our most precious human resources.
Eighth, we said we must implement a rational, seamless higher education system that grasps intellectual and professional challenges facing South Africans in the 21st century.
Now that we have in place a comprehensive national plan for higher education, we have taken on the challenge of implementing the plan in earnest, including taking to its logical conclusion the process of merging 36 institutions into 21 new institutions and transforming academic programmes.
This year, we saw the coming into being of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the new Unisa (University of South Africa), North West University, and the Tshwane University of Technology. Reports from these new merged universities indicate that, although there have been challenges, the process of creating truly South African universities is well under way.
Ninth, we said we must deal urgently and purposefully with the HIV/AIDS emergency in and through the education and training system.
We are all aware that HIV/AIDS is a serious crisis for the health, lives, and well being of our people. The Nelson Mandela Foundation/Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Report on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in our country gave a sobering profile of the threat to our national health. But the report also gave us hope that our educational efforts are having an effect: 84 percent of our people between the ages of 12 and 24 had learned about the causes and prevention of HIV/AIDS in our schools.
We have fully integrated education about HIV/AIDS into our curriculum. Recently, I set up a team of experts, under the auspices of the ELRC, led by Dr Olive Shisana of the HSRC to investigate the human resource issues of teacher supply and demand, with special attention to the prevalence and consequences of HIV and AIDS. This research should help us not only in planning for human resource development but also in responding to the human tragedy of HIV/AIDS.
Conclusion
By working together - Tirisano - we have come a long way in education. As we review our progress over the past five years and celebrate our ten years of freedom and democracy, we need to remember the extraordinary damage that was done to us in the past by the previous educational system.
Christian National Education, which was neither Christian, nor national, nor truly educational, contributed to the militarisation and polarisation of our society. Bantu Education, which was designed to cripple our people, left lingering wounds in our society.
All of our efforts must be directed towards recovering from the damage that was done in the name of education.
This year, in celebrating our ten years of freedom, the Department of Education has planned many events. On 31 March we are holding a celebration in Cape Town at the Centre for the Book - "Keeping Memory Alive, Shaping Our Future - at which we will remember our past and introduce a wide range of exciting new publications for teaching and learning about our history.
On another occasion, we will be conducting hearings on the damaging effects of apartheid education. Already, testimony has been coming in to the department from people who have been working to recover from the damage caused by education under apartheid. Other events are planned, all designed to focus attention on our extraordinary challenges and achievements in emerging from the dark days of apartheid.
As Minister of Education, visiting schools, I regularly meet with young people who give me hope. They are the vital signs of our recovery from apartheid education. Sometimes, they show real insight into our political processes that we do not always see displayed by journalists.
Recently, when I was visiting a school in KwaZulu-Natal, a Grade 10 student asked me: "How can newspapers report that there will be three Deputy Presidents, when the Constitution says there is only one?"
Another Grade 10 student asked me: "When the newspapers speculate about who might be the next Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, don't they know that only candidates on provincial lists, regulated by the IEC, can become the premier of a province?"
And another Grade 10 student wondered: "Why do newspapers repeat each other's stories? Why does one newspaper believe what another newspaper says?"
These are vital signs, I am convinced, that our curriculum is working to encourage critical thinking. In the past, the educational model that was imposed on us was based on trying to stuff our heads with facts. Now we are teaching pupils to think, to develop their capacities for critical thinking and creative imagination. These skills will be necessary for them to participate fully in our changing society and globalising economy in the twenty-first century.
As I look back over my time as Minister of Education, I find that the nine priorities that we identified in 1999 are still our priorities for education today.
The fact that our priorities of five years ago remain our priorities today should not be taken to mean that we have failed to meet these challenges. It means that they were the right priorities. These areas define our enduring challenges in creating and sustaining an efficient, effective, and quality system of education to meet the needs of our people and open the future for our society.
In his State of the Nation Address in 2004, President Thabo Mbeki stated boldly, and I believe rightly, that we now have the right policies in place. I am convinced that we have the right policies in place for education.
Whoever is the next Minister of Education will be able to build on a solid foundation.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Education
16 March 2004
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