Date: 05/04/2006
Source: The Presidency
Title: Mlambo-Ngcuka: Most Improved Schools Awards ceremony (05/04/2006)


  Keynote address delivered by the Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the Most Improved Schools Awards, Presidential Guest House

Minister of Education, Ms Naledi Pandor,
Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Enver Surty,
MECs present,
Sponsors,
Award winners,
Principals,
Members of the School Governing Bodies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and gentlemen

I am honoured to be part of an awards ceremony of schools that are making an important contribution to the human resource base of the country.

As a former educator, I have always had deep respect for the role played by education in sustainable empowerment of individuals and communities. Education has a decisive role in the success of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), and bringing about of growth to a minimum of 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2014 and halving poverty and unemployment.

When we launched the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) a week ago we emphasised the importance of education, when we said "the most fatal constraint to shared growth is skills! And it should be noted that skills are not just one of the constraints facing AsgiSA but a potentially fatal constraint!", thus drawing a clear relationship between skills and education. The improvement of quality of education especially in poor communities where teachers and the schools has to compensate for inadequate role by parents who have too many challenges and limitations is critical. The school becomes the one and only support institution. We therefore know and understand the burden and extra responsibility faced by the teachers here today.

When we define the scarce and priority skills needed for sustainability of AsgiSA, we include educators such as yourselves, I mean we have to support the Department of Education (DoE) in all their endeavours, to assist teachers and we must have targets by when we must reach out.

In AsgiSA we have put in place JIPSA, for JIPSA to work through and with the Department of Education.

There is a close correlation between JIPSA and the role of education, the following working areas for JIPSA with a particular reference to education were identified:

* High-level, world-class engineering and planning skills for the 'network industries' - transport, communications and energy - all at the core of our infrastructure programme;

* City, urban and regional planning and engineering skills - desperately needed by our municipalities;

* Artisan and technical skills, with priority attention to those needs for infrastructure development;

* Management and planning skills in education, health and in municipalities; * Teacher training for mathematics, science, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and language competence in public education;

* Specific skills needed by the Priority AsgiSA, sectors starting with Tourism and Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) and cross-cutting skills needed by all sectors especially finance; project managers and managers in general;

* Skills relevant to local economic development needs of municipalities, especially developmental economists.

Some of you may be surprised that the work of primary and high schools features so prominently in AsgiSA. But if we were to concentrate only on immediate alleviation of priority skills, South Africa would be in an eternal skills crisis.

I am proud to say that we have identified a number of school level initiatives in AsgiSA to ensure that we lay the basis for the high-level knowledge and skills necessary for growth and prosperity for all. The three projects are:

* The Quality Improvement Development, Support and Upliftment Project (QIDS-UP), which seeks to ensure that all primary schools have the basic requirements for quality education especially books and libraries -essential for developing reading skills. * We strongly support the Career Guidance Programme developed for grade nine learners. This is an initiative of Higher Education South Africa and the Department of Education aimed at ensuring that young learners know early in their academic lives that they need to work hard, develop the necessary skills and exercise the best choices in order to increase their learning and earning opportunities. This is especially important for poor learners and schools that have traditionally not had career guidance teachers.

* We strongly support the Dinaledi Project, which aims to double the number of mathematics graduates from grade 12 by 2008. In 2005 there were 26 000 higher grade mathematics graduates. This project aims to accelerate the number passing to 50 000 in the next three years. This project was noted in the President's state of the national address earlier this year and I am delighted to meet and celebrate the achievements of 12 of the 400 schools tonight.

Minister Pandor has already alluded to the important role played by the 16 June 1976 student's uprising in ensuring today's generation receive quality education under free and democratic conditions. I am sure that you will agree with me that I am not sentimental or romanticising our past when I say that "If it was not for 16 June 1976, we wouldn't be where we are today".

For that and many other reasons this year on June 16 we will unveil our Enhanced National Youth Service, which will give opportunity to out-of school youth and graduates to acquire skills, to service communities and also acquire skills to be a good member of the society. We will re-dedicate to those young people who gave their lives for freedom.

Those who lost their lives on June 16 must be celebrating tonight wherever they may be - and raising a fist in tribute and support of the schools that have given life to their aspirations and struggles.

Language and quality were the issues of the 1976 uprisings and so it is appropriate that 30 years on we celebrate schools that are promoting and expanding quality education and the languages of South Africa.

These languages include Afrikaans an important and vibrant language of South Africa. Afrikaans today, is bound to play an important role in JIPSA, as Afrikaans speakers can easily master some of the international languages that offer us with a possibility of running effective Call Centres.

For an example the Netherlands and Belgium are earmarked to use young people with Afrikaans competency because of the closeness of Afrikaans to Dutch and Belgian dialects.

Minister Pandor, I am also impressed by the range of schools from across the country who have achieved success. There are, I believe two schools from Tshwane - here on our doorstep. There are schools from big cities. There are schools located in leafy suburbs and schools from sprawling townships. There are schools that are located in remote rural areas and quiet villages. There are legendary schools such as Mbilwi High School from Thohoyandou and Livingstone High in Landsdowne Road that have for decades produced hundreds of high quality learners and then there are schools that we have not heard of until tonight.

All of them in their own way and with their own ethos and values provide valuable and life changing opportunities to those lucky enough to attend them. One of these wonderful schools produced 64 higher grade Maths learners in 2005 and 26 of these obtained A symbols.

At one school from KwaZulu-Natal a whopping 276 learners passed grade 12 in 2005 and at another in Gauteng 260 learners passed. The school that produced the highest number of endorsement candidates in 2005 is in Limpopo and 184 learners achieved this quality pass.

I want to pay two special tributes tonight. I salute and thank sponsors for restoring hope and dignity of these young people and thank sponsors for their generosity. The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative has partnerships at its core.

Government cannot on its own accelerate growth and nor is it only government's responsibility. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders in the economy to promote and support shared growth. In fact it is in the interests of all social partners that there is shared growth. And so I am delighted tonight to see the private sector supporting and providing incentives for increased and improved performance in schools.

All the sponsors here tonight are known not only for their financial support of education but their willingness to be real and long-term partners in the education of our people. Through this we make the sharing in AsgiSA a reality as education can be shared with all our people and those who need it most.

I wish to single out the particular contribution of Anglo American. The Anglo American Chairman's Fund and the subsequent funds that have emerged from that fund have a long and proud history of support for education.

Here the publishers and Publishers' Association of South Africa (PASA) play can and do play an essential role in ensuring that high quality affordable materials reach the children of South Africa. The partnership between education and PASA must ensure this for sustainable and high-level skills development. My second tribute goes to those who are the teachers who day in and day out work to provide learners with the knowledge and skills to excel and access bright futures. I am often reminded of the important and selfless role of teachers when colleagues and celebrities interviewed on radio and television pay tribute to teachers as their role models.

Last Monday at the launch of the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition I indicated that we would be concentrating on the recruitment and training of teachers. To the provincial MECs, education officials, principals and governors here tonight please pass on government's congratulations on their successes.

The Awards we present tonight are a small token of our appreciation for the work of teachers and principals. They allow us to congratulate, affirm, recognise, and say Thank You for a job well done. I look forward to meeting the winners later this evening. It will be an honour to congratulate you on your achievements and spur you on to even greater heights.

I thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
5 April 2006