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In a statement released yesterday, the Department of Basic Education indicated that the CEO of the National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (NEEDU), Dr Sibusiso Sithole, had made a groveling apology to Minister Motshekga.

It said:

The NEEDU CEO admitted that as a team they have erred in judgment on several occasions over the past five years to the extent that they had to apologise to the Minister. “In my communication to the NEEDU team, when I was talking about the Minister having raised concerns about how ‘certain issues were handled in the past,’ I was referring to these errors in judgment, which are best known to the NEEDU team and the Ministry,” said Sithole.

This comes after the DA revealed evidence this week that Minister Motshekga is curtailing the independence of NEEDU in order to shield her Department from public scrutiny.

The question is: why is the CEO of NEEDU apologising to Minister Motshekga? And what “errors of judgment” is the CEO referring to?

NEEDU was set up as an independent unit “independent of that part of the civil service responsible for the administration of schools.” NEEDU’s job is to evaluate the state of our education system without fear or favour; not to kowtow to Minister Motshekga.

I have submitted parliamentary questions to find out why NEEDU felt it necessary to say sorry to Minister Motshekga. I certainly hope that the CEO is not apologising for the frank and robust 2012 and 2013 NEEDU reports currently in the public domain.

These NEEDU reports offer us invaluable insights into the state of our education system. Crucially, the reports pull no punches when it comes to the negative role being played by SADTU in many schools, as well as the under-performance of many teachers.

NEEDU needs to resist any attempts to have its independence curtailed. We cannot allow Minister Motshekga to capture NEEDU just because it raises politically uncomfortable questions in its reports. We must put the children of our country first.

Issued by DA