Date: 28/08/2003
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: Molefe: Opening of Africa Drive Project
SPEECH BY NORTH WEST PREMIER, DR POPO SIMON MOLEFE, AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE ADP LEARNING CENTRE, Uniwest, 28 August 2003
Programme Director,
The Vice Chancellor of the University of the North West, Dr Takalo,
The Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of the North West, Dr Mashego
MEC Tolo,
Honoured Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is indeed a great pleasure for me to be part of this important occasion to mark the official opening the Africa Drive Project (ADP) Learning Centre that will be based at the University of North West.
Since the 1994 democratic breakthrough, our system of education has undergone massive transformation. As government, we take pride in the progress we made in overhauling our education system and positioning it to suit the unique demands of our democratic society.
As you will recall, at a national level we inherited a chaotic collection of 19 departments, defined by apartheid's racial geography and ethnic illogic. These departments were marked by major discrepancies in their resourcing, curriculum, and administration.
In our province of the North West, we faced a challenge of bringing together education systems from three different administrations each with its own inefficiencies, standards and values. That we have been able to turn around the fragmented education system we inherited, counts as a major achievement for our relatively young democratic state.
We are also making good progress in our effort to restructure our school curriculum. Our progressive outcomes-based curriculum, covering grades R to 9 is now widely accepted by educators, learners, academics and parents as an important tool to move our systems of education away from its past, which sought to produce generations of mentally stunted learners.
In the critical area of Further Education and Training our government has made substantial progress in revising the curriculum for Grades 10 to 12 in schools.
This outcomes-based curriculum will be phased in from 2006, once preparations, including teacher training and materials development, have been satisfactorily completed.
The results of our efforts to restructure the education system are beginning to show in the quality of our matric results and more specifically in the increasing number of learners who pass grade 12. We in the North West Province, take pride in the fact that our Grade 12 pass rate continues to show a steady increase. Last year we recorded a commendable 5% improvement in our matric pass rate.
We also take pride in the fact that the number of dysfunctional schools in our province dropped significantly from 91 in 2001 to 59 in 2002. We are also encouraged by the fact that the matric pass rate in the dysfunctional schools rose from 32,6% in 2001 to 49,8% in 2002.
We also note with appreciation the fact that last year, the number of grade 12 learners who wrote Maths and Science showed a steady increase and the pass rate in these critical subjects was higher than the previous year's.
That we have achieved these milestones in our education system is a direct result of the dedication and hard work by educators, school managers, learners, education officials and parents. On this important gathering, we must salute the many educators in our province who continue to go beyond the call of duty in an effort to educate the nation. We must salute the school managers who, through their guidance, our schools have been turned into centres of excellence and knowledge production.
We are proud of the role played by parents in ensuring that the culture of learning and teaching is entrenched in our schools. We shall be forever indebted to the parents of Mailakgang Primary School, and many other schools in our province, who took part in volunteer work with a view to improve learning conditions in schools. Memories of parents painting, repairing and cleaning school premises are still fresh in our minds. Indeed, words cannot express our profound gratitude to those parents for their overwhelming response to the Letsema and Vuk'uzenzele calls.
The progress we are making, has not blinded us to the reality that more still needs to be done, by all of us, to ensure that our education system adequately prepares our learners for the ever changing local and global economy.
As government we have accepted that there are challenges that still lie ahead. Part of these challenges is the need to increase the number of learners who enrol for the strategically important learning areas of Science, Mathematics, Information and Communication Technology, Biology and Entrepreneurship.
Despite some progress made in increasing the number of learners who enrol for these learning areas, far too many of our learners are still shying away from these subjects. Far too many of our learners, graduate from the school system without or with poor marks in these subjects, which are the key to finding employment and creating jobs in the economy.
This unfortunate development forces our school leavers to join what I call "the army of the unemployable". It denies them an opportunity to be part of the economic mainstream and to thus contribute to the reconstruction and development of their country.
As more and more of our young people fail to be absorbed into the economic mainstream, the competitiveness of our economy suffers as a huge part of our workforce is excluded from the active economic life. This poses a risk that as a country we may not succeed in our effort to build a strong, vibrant and competitive economy that will allow us to bring sustainable development to our people.
Equally, the lack of proper skills in the critical areas of science and technology can erode some of the gains we made in bringing political and economic stability in our country. Part of the reason many of our school leavers leave the school system without Maths and Science subjects is the serious shortage of suitably qualified teachers who can teach these subjects.
Teachers form the backbone of our education system. It is they who carry the responsibility of facilitating the transfer of knowledge to learners. Their development, therefore, is a matter that is upper most in our agenda as government to improve the quality of education.
It is for this reason that we welcome today's opening of the ADP Learning Centre at the University of the North West. This learning centre will go a long way towards assisting efforts to build a cadre of educators who are suitably qualified to teach Maths, Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship subjects.
This learning centre falls squarely within our vision as government to accelerate teacher development particularly in the areas of science, technology and entrepreneurship.
On behalf of the provincial government, the learners and educators in our province, I wish to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to all those who have made it possible for this learning centre to be opened today.
We are humbled by the fact that this centre is a product of a partnership between the public sector and the private sector. These partnerships are of critical importance if we as a nation are to succeed in building for ourselves, a better country, a country of our dreams, a country that is the envy of the international community.
As government, we stand ready to do everything in our power to foster the creation of public-private partnerships in education and indeed in all sectors of our society.
This we are doing because we understand that acting alone, government will not succeed in eradicating apartheid's legacy of underdevelopment and lack of access to opportunities.
As I conclude, I urge all those who will be using this centre to take good care of it. It is important that this centre is carefully looked after so that it can continue to be of benefit to generation after generation of learners and educators.
I thank you
Issued by North West Provincial Government
28 August 2003
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: Molefe: Opening of Africa Drive Project
SPEECH BY NORTH WEST PREMIER, DR POPO SIMON MOLEFE, AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE ADP LEARNING CENTRE, Uniwest, 28 August 2003
Programme Director,
The Vice Chancellor of the University of the North West, Dr Takalo,
The Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of the North West, Dr Mashego
MEC Tolo,
Honoured Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is indeed a great pleasure for me to be part of this important occasion to mark the official opening the Africa Drive Project (ADP) Learning Centre that will be based at the University of North West.
Since the 1994 democratic breakthrough, our system of education has undergone massive transformation. As government, we take pride in the progress we made in overhauling our education system and positioning it to suit the unique demands of our democratic society.
As you will recall, at a national level we inherited a chaotic collection of 19 departments, defined by apartheid's racial geography and ethnic illogic. These departments were marked by major discrepancies in their resourcing, curriculum, and administration.
In our province of the North West, we faced a challenge of bringing together education systems from three different administrations each with its own inefficiencies, standards and values. That we have been able to turn around the fragmented education system we inherited, counts as a major achievement for our relatively young democratic state.
We are also making good progress in our effort to restructure our school curriculum. Our progressive outcomes-based curriculum, covering grades R to 9 is now widely accepted by educators, learners, academics and parents as an important tool to move our systems of education away from its past, which sought to produce generations of mentally stunted learners.
In the critical area of Further Education and Training our government has made substantial progress in revising the curriculum for Grades 10 to 12 in schools.
This outcomes-based curriculum will be phased in from 2006, once preparations, including teacher training and materials development, have been satisfactorily completed.
The results of our efforts to restructure the education system are beginning to show in the quality of our matric results and more specifically in the increasing number of learners who pass grade 12. We in the North West Province, take pride in the fact that our Grade 12 pass rate continues to show a steady increase. Last year we recorded a commendable 5% improvement in our matric pass rate.
We also take pride in the fact that the number of dysfunctional schools in our province dropped significantly from 91 in 2001 to 59 in 2002. We are also encouraged by the fact that the matric pass rate in the dysfunctional schools rose from 32,6% in 2001 to 49,8% in 2002.
We also note with appreciation the fact that last year, the number of grade 12 learners who wrote Maths and Science showed a steady increase and the pass rate in these critical subjects was higher than the previous year's.
That we have achieved these milestones in our education system is a direct result of the dedication and hard work by educators, school managers, learners, education officials and parents. On this important gathering, we must salute the many educators in our province who continue to go beyond the call of duty in an effort to educate the nation. We must salute the school managers who, through their guidance, our schools have been turned into centres of excellence and knowledge production.
We are proud of the role played by parents in ensuring that the culture of learning and teaching is entrenched in our schools. We shall be forever indebted to the parents of Mailakgang Primary School, and many other schools in our province, who took part in volunteer work with a view to improve learning conditions in schools. Memories of parents painting, repairing and cleaning school premises are still fresh in our minds. Indeed, words cannot express our profound gratitude to those parents for their overwhelming response to the Letsema and Vuk'uzenzele calls.
The progress we are making, has not blinded us to the reality that more still needs to be done, by all of us, to ensure that our education system adequately prepares our learners for the ever changing local and global economy.
As government we have accepted that there are challenges that still lie ahead. Part of these challenges is the need to increase the number of learners who enrol for the strategically important learning areas of Science, Mathematics, Information and Communication Technology, Biology and Entrepreneurship.
Despite some progress made in increasing the number of learners who enrol for these learning areas, far too many of our learners are still shying away from these subjects. Far too many of our learners, graduate from the school system without or with poor marks in these subjects, which are the key to finding employment and creating jobs in the economy.
This unfortunate development forces our school leavers to join what I call "the army of the unemployable". It denies them an opportunity to be part of the economic mainstream and to thus contribute to the reconstruction and development of their country.
As more and more of our young people fail to be absorbed into the economic mainstream, the competitiveness of our economy suffers as a huge part of our workforce is excluded from the active economic life. This poses a risk that as a country we may not succeed in our effort to build a strong, vibrant and competitive economy that will allow us to bring sustainable development to our people.
Equally, the lack of proper skills in the critical areas of science and technology can erode some of the gains we made in bringing political and economic stability in our country. Part of the reason many of our school leavers leave the school system without Maths and Science subjects is the serious shortage of suitably qualified teachers who can teach these subjects.
Teachers form the backbone of our education system. It is they who carry the responsibility of facilitating the transfer of knowledge to learners. Their development, therefore, is a matter that is upper most in our agenda as government to improve the quality of education.
It is for this reason that we welcome today's opening of the ADP Learning Centre at the University of the North West. This learning centre will go a long way towards assisting efforts to build a cadre of educators who are suitably qualified to teach Maths, Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship subjects.
This learning centre falls squarely within our vision as government to accelerate teacher development particularly in the areas of science, technology and entrepreneurship.
On behalf of the provincial government, the learners and educators in our province, I wish to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to all those who have made it possible for this learning centre to be opened today.
We are humbled by the fact that this centre is a product of a partnership between the public sector and the private sector. These partnerships are of critical importance if we as a nation are to succeed in building for ourselves, a better country, a country of our dreams, a country that is the envy of the international community.
As government, we stand ready to do everything in our power to foster the creation of public-private partnerships in education and indeed in all sectors of our society.
This we are doing because we understand that acting alone, government will not succeed in eradicating apartheid's legacy of underdevelopment and lack of access to opportunities.
As I conclude, I urge all those who will be using this centre to take good care of it. It is important that this centre is carefully looked after so that it can continue to be of benefit to generation after generation of learners and educators.
I thank you
Issued by North West Provincial Government
28 August 2003
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