Date: 23/03/2010
Source: Freedom Front Plus
Title: FFPlus: Mulder: Speech by FFPlus Chief Whip in the debate on the Basic Education budget vote, Parliament

Government has indicated that Education is one of the five top priorities that it is committed to.
The FF Plus welcomes this.

The President in his SONA said that government have placed education and skills development at the centre of their policies.

Government in its 2010 programme wants to improve the ability of our children to read, write and count during the foundation years.

Unless this is done we will not improve the quality of education.

The president also said: "We want learners and teachers to be in school, in class, on time, learning and teaching for seven hours a day". No one in his right mind can have any problem with this.

The tragedy however is that it was necessary to say this in the first place. How do we hope to compete globally in the year 2010 if teachers and learners are not at school, in class, on time, learning and teaching for at least seven hours a day?

The President has also set specific measurable targets and goals.

a. Teachers are to be provided with detailed daily lesson plans;
b. Students are to be provided with easy-to-use workbooks in all 11 languages;
c. From this year onwards, all grade 3, 6 and 9 students will write literacy and numeracy tests that are independently moderated. (If only this was done when Julius Malema was still at school - just think how much trouble we could have saved SA);
d. The government's aim is to increase the pass rate for these tests from the current average of between 35 and 40% to at least 60% by 2014;
e. Results will be sent to parents to track progress;
f. In addition, each of SA's 27 000 schools will be assessed by officials from the Department of Basic Education. This will be recorded in an auditable written report;
g. The government aims to increase the number of matriculation students who are eligible for university admission to 175 000 a year by 2014;
h. We urge parents to cooperate with us in making this a success;
i. We welcome last month's statement by the three teacher unions, NAPTOSA, SADTU and SAOU, reaffirming their commitment to the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign from the beginning of 2010.

Speaker, this government's education policy unfortunately will not pass the International Guidelines for minority languages and cultural rights.

How serious are we about section 6(2) in the constitutional that stipulates that the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of indigenous languages? Is isiZulu a backward language? Can isiXhosa never become a University language? The Minister is on record in favour of mother tongue education. Let's work together in getting a fair solution on all levels of education.

Why is language and education such an emotional issue? Because the future existence of an ethnic group, or cultural group depends on the extent to which the group succeeds in carrying their language and culture, through education, over to the children of that group. In history where imperialists and colonialists wanted to assimilate or wipe out a cultural group, they tried to do it through education. In our history, there are more than enough examples.

The modern international approach to education is that parliament budgets for an amount toward education. Then it is calculated what amount is to be spent on every child for education. The parents may then choose to take their child to a Muslim, a Greek or a Christian school. The amount of money budgeted goes with the child to his school of choice. That is democracy, that is freedom, which is the modern approach away from governments trying to misuse education for social manipulation and their own short-term political benefits.