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Date : 21/06/2004
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: N Pandor: Education Dept Budget Vote debate, NCOP


SPEECH BY NALEDI PANDOR, MP, MINISTER OF EDUCATION, INTRODUCING THE DEBATE ON THE EDUCATION BUDGET, VOTE 15, National Council of Provinces, 21 June 2004

Madam Chairperson
Honourable Members of the National Council of Provinces
Members of Executive Councils
Invited guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Every thinking person will tell you that the most diabolical aspect of apartheid was its Bantu education policy. Denying a person the opportunity to maximise and realise his or her potential was an evil act. Our task, therefore, is very clear. Principally it is to confound the architects of apartheid Bantu education and to create and sustain an education system in which opportunity has no boundaries, in which every person has the right to believe that he or she will emerge from our education system equipped with the skills that will enable them to live sustainable lives.

It has taken a great effort to undo the damage created by apartheid education. Our key goals in post-apartheid education remain equity, quality, access and redress. We have been successful in all these areas, but our greatest success has been in transforming education from a sector serving the privileged few to a sector serving all our people. The following are remarkable achievements:

* better access to schooling than ever before

In 1975 there were 5.4 million pupils. In 2000 there were 11.4 million. That increase was largely made up by African enrolments. We have provided general education to all within the compulsory school-age cohort (7 to 15 years).

* the pupil to teacher ratio has improved

The pupil-to-facility ratio has declined from 43:1 in 1996 to 38:1 in 2002. This means that pupils now have better access to learning facilities than before 1994.

* schooling for girls as well as boys

At primary and secondary levels the enrolment of girls is higher than for boys. There has been a lower school dropout rate for girls than for boys.

* the achievement of gender equity in higher education

In 1988 there were 340,000 students. In 2003 there were 650,325 students.

Women outnumber men at universities and technikons (347,679 women to 302,646 men making a total of 650,325). (1)

My predecessors in the Ministry have shaped sound education policies, from general education through to higher education. The hard work of policy formulation has been done. The challenges ahead mainly require the implementation of programmes that are already under way.

It is important, Honourable Delegates, to always remind ourselves that the responsibility for transforming and improving the education system is shared between national government and the provinces. For general education and further education and training, the national department is responsible for overall policy, monitoring and support, while the provinces are responsible for service delivery and financing. For higher education, the national department is responsible for developing policy and monitoring and co-ordinating government financing.

The important role of provincial education departments has to be emphasised because our opponents often misconstrue our system by asserting that it is centralised by ANC national control. Provinces play a central role in implementation. They determine use of their budgets and establish priorities in the context certainly of national norms and standards.

The objectives of our education budget are to support the erosion of poverty and to support economic growth. Budget 2004 does this in a number of important ways. The budget plans that you will learn of from our provincial colleagues will inform you of the school nutrition scheme at primary school level (R838, 2 million has been set aside for this purpose in 2004/5 and R918, 2 million in 2005/6), and all provinces have nutrition programmes.

We also plan to accelerate implementation of early childhood education programmes and to ensure that all schools have grade R classes. This will support us in providing children with a core foundation for ensuring they succeed at primary school level.

Increased attention will be given to ensuring that schools and colleges have the resources to support quality learning and teaching. School libraries and the provision of books in a range of languages must be made available. Learning materials are being delivered timeously, and this will continue. Teacher development programmes will be strengthened to ensure teachers play a full and effective role as the frontline in our battle to translate education access to acquisition of skills and knowledge in all the learning areas and most importantly in maths, science and the language of learning English. We regard this focused attention to effective learning and teaching as our most significant priority because it neatly locks into our next set of priorities.

Much has been said about unemployment in South Africa, and about the yawning chasm between skills needed in our economy and skills acquired in our schools and universities. It is tragic that South Africa has a graduate unemployment problem. The recent HSRC study into human resource development points to the strategies South Africa must give attention to. Students and learners must acquire marketable skills in our schools and universities.

Our training institutions need to take far more of an interest in the shape of our economy. It is clear, for example, that for a developing country such as ours managing development is an important priority. Despite this we severely lack adequately prepared managers and tend to perpetuate the artificial divide between learning and doing.

Economic history also shows that sustained economic growth is usually partnered by opportunity for all citizens. Our economic framework continues to be dominated by large monopoly players who wish to control everything and squeeze out small entrepreneurs. Our government has shaped policies that allow for increased popular participation in our economy. Unfortunately our education institutions continue to perpetuate training for the idea of employment rather than training for economic expansion and employment creation.

It is our intention that the colleges of further education and training will increasingly fill this gap. The plans that have been formulated by the college sector address these inadequacies. The provincial authorities have agreed that 2004 must be the year in which adequate funds are provided to the colleges so that they begin to implement our strategic education priorities. Our higher education institutions will also have to contribute to skills development by focusing on responsive programme offerings, by using research such as the HSRC to develop responsive programmes, and by working with the Department of Education to craft effective responses to our economic and social challenges.

We have already budgeted for the recapitalisation of the merging higher education institutions. The process of reconfiguring the higher education sector is a complex exercise and one that is likely to give rise to a range of difficult challenges. We are fully alert to the need to monitor the merger processes constantly and to anticipate likely problem areas before crises emerge. The intention behind the mergers is to promote and enhance transformation and not to disrupt the sector in a manner that detracts from or negates this noble objective. The developments thus far have shown that we have a strong possibility of success and a huge responsibility to provide effective support.

In the May 2004 State of the Nation Speech, the President evoked memories of the Freedom Charter and the People's Education campaign of the NECC when he stressed that this government will ensure the achievement of "opening the doors of learning and culture" ever wider for the people of our country. As indicated in the achievements referred to earlier, the education sector has been acting on this mandate for some time. With respect to the specific targets outlined by the president, we intend to implement in the following ways, while strengthening and consolidating areas in which we have already made considerable progress.

1. "We will work to ensure adequate funding of the technical colleges and proper alignment of the courses they offer with the requirements of the economy."

The mandate of the further education and training colleges is to provide intermediate skills for young people and adults so as to enable them to participate actively in the economy. Recent statistics indicate that up to 60% of the unemployed are youth between the ages of 19 and 35. The majority of youths in this category are unemployed, which means that if they do not receive training to skill them for the challenges of the globalising economy they will remain trapped in poverty and underdevelopment. As I indicated moments ago, colleges need to be funded and developed in a manner that will allow them to provide both skills-upgrade programmes as well as leading-edge programmes that answer to the challenge of supplying the critical scarce skills needs of South Africa.

As has been pointed out by a number of analysts, the 2004 budget contains no funding for the recapitalisation of the further education and training colleges. However, several clusters of colleges have provided us with their institutional plans; and the Department has used these as a basis for an application to treasury for interim funding. The further education and training sector has reached its maximum utilisation of current investment. The colleges are budgeted to spend R4, 8 billion over the next three financial years. It is proposed that a further R3, 1 billion be approved to the sector. I have been very pleased to note that several of the provincial departments have also announced commitments to this vital sector.

Beyond these beginnings we believe that much success can be achieved through partnerships with the business community, which has already invested heavily in restructuring existing colleges. We intend to initiate discussions with a range of sectors to explore possible partnerships and programmes of co-operation.

2.''We will consolidate the merger process of institutions of higher learning ensuring that they do, in reality, become single institutions with a unified institutional culture"

As already indicated we will strengthen our role in supporting and monitoring this process. The President was referring to issues of institutional change that are far more fundamental than merger processes. Many of the merging institutions enter the partnership as unequal partners. The temptation to dominate will influence many of the necessary change processes the Department of Education will have to ensure that no institutional dominance of race culture or numbers is permitted. Any outcome of dominance confirmed will set in place the apartheid features of power and oppression. It is this form of outcome that the president has urged attention to and we will monitor structure changes and new rules and statutes very carefully. We will intensify our work to ensure that the transformative aspirations of the mergers are realised.

This will require an unwavering commitment on the part of the new institutional management and governing structures to ensure that the challenges we face in the development of a new integrated culture of shared values and loyalties, attitudes and conditions of work are addressed.

The Department will also be monitoring and tracking the transformation of institutional cultures in all higher education institutions including the ones unaffected by mergers. This process has already begun. In 2003 institutions which are not directly affected by mergers, or where restructuring is limited to the incorporation of satellite campuses, submitted three-year rolling plans for the period 2004-2006.They are supposed to clearly outline the strategies they have put in place to develop more inclusive institutional cultures.

The stated objectives and targets in relation to this priority will form the basis of future allocation of subsidies to institutions.

3. "By the end of this financial year we shall ensure that there is no learner and student learning under a tree, mud-school or any dangerous conditions that expose learners and teachers to the elements."

In 2003 there were 494 cases of schools without any classrooms, which is defined as a school under trees. By this year, the number has decreased to 152, of which 144 are in Limpopo Province. Although this is a declining phenomenon, it is important to note that rural to urban migration patterns put the education system under pressure. For example, a sudden influx of people occurs in an area, and a demand for a school for their children is created. This has required the use of innovative responses such as mobile classrooms, which are extensively used in some urban provinces.

The Department is now broadening the scope of the programme by also targeting those schools that have unacceptable facilities. Our records (based on data provided by provinces) show that there are over two thousand schools in such conditions. This equates to some 12,123 classrooms that are required to accommodate the 400,000 pupils at these schools.

Against this need, current budgets and plans provide for 95 new schools to be built this financial year. To eradicate the problem would cost in excess of R50 billion, and we are developing a systematic and planned rollout of the programme.

At the Council of Education Ministers meeting, held on the 7 and 8 June, we agreed that we would give priority to providing decent schooling facilities for the pupils of our country. All our provincial colleagues agreed to scrutinise already tight budgets to ensure that no child learns under trees by March 31 2005. We will liase with the Public Works Department to co-operate in delivering on this promise. We believe it is absolutely necessary to respond practically to this call by our President.

The CEM has agreed that the Department should strengthen its monitoring role to ensure that the targets we collectively set are attained. We have agreed to ensure that work has begun on the new buildings during the course of this year.

4. "By the end of the current financial year we expect all schools to have access to clean water and sanitation"

Clean water and sanitation will be attended to as a matter of urgency and will feature prominently in the plans we will develop in partnership with the provinces. Around R200 million is required to eliminate the problems of sanitation in schools altogether. We are awaiting a response from one of the major donors in this regard. I will also be approaching my colleague the Minister of Water Affairs to see what we can do together. An inter-departmental task team between Education and Water Affairs is already working on the matter.

5. "The Department of Education will expand the reach of the Adult Basic Education and Training programme, ABET, aligning it with the training objectives of the EPWP."

The Department will increase the number of learners enrolled in current ABET programmes by 29,000 in the current financial year. This we will do in partnership with various community and non-governmental organisations working in the field of ABET. We are very pleased with the progress adults are making in obtaining ABET level 4, with 26,067 students writing last year.

The Minister of Labour and I are meeting to discuss co-operation in integrating education and training. The provision of adult basic education and training is one of the areas for such cooperation. We will require our departments to provide us with a full audit of government funded adult education provision, including the current level of investment in this sector within a month, so that we can decide whether current investment is optimal or needs redirection.

Also, in line with the President's injunction, we will urgently and continuously assess the basic learning needs of adults and youths participating in the Expanded Public Works Programme. This will allow us to integrate education and training into the productive activities of the programme, thus ensuring the development of much needed skills for use beyond its life.

6. "We will continue to implement other social security initiatives such as the school nutrition programme and the provision of free basic services"

The Department will ensure that the national schools nutrition programme reaches 5 million learners in approximately 15,000 schools in rural and farm communities, as well as in informal settlements. We will continue to work with these communities to ensure the establishment of sustainable food security initiatives to strengthen our efforts towards the creation of increased job opportunities and a culture of self-reliance.

The nutrition programme intends to bring school volunteer cooks on to the Expanded Public Works Programme, so that in the future such unemployed but dedicated volunteers can gain skills that will put them in good standing as service providers and leaders of catering contracts. Issues of infrastructure like water, sanitation, food gardens, capacity for women service providers and management of social and health circumstances of children is a team effort, and not a matter for the Department of Education alone. Partnerships are being consolidated with social sector cluster departments such as Agriculture, Health and Social Development.

Provincial visits carried out by the Department of Education in the period 15 - 23 April 2004 and recently to the Eastern Cape indicate that all provinces are feeding pupils under the scheme. Monitors have reported isolated pockets of difficulties, most of which point to weak information dissemination and inadequate human resourcing by provinces. We will continue liasing to address any problem areas.

In conclusion, there are three issues that require comment. First, school fees and exemptions. Financial exclusion of poor pupils is one of the biggest challenges we face in the Department. Existing legislation protects poor pupils from exclusion by allowing for school fee exemption, by allocating a seven-times higher per capita to the poorest pupils than the least poor, and by ensuring that teaching resources are distributed equitably among schools.

However, the recently published report on the costs of education suggests that hidden costs of textbooks, school lunches and school uniforms are still presenting a relatively "expensive" education for the poor. The Department is committed to abolishing school fees for the poorest of our society. We are aware that this is a growing demand from a number of unions and other civil society organisations and Honourable Members were recently made aware of these demands at the public hearing the ad hoc committee on education held into the budget vote.

Provinces are currently looking closely at their budgets and priorities in order to determine who could be exempted from fees. Where pupils are exempted from fees, the schools will be guaranteed a basic minimum funding package that will be sufficient to secure a quality education without the need to collect fees. We should never expect parents or care-givers to use social grants to pay for a basic education.

Second, the issue of corporal punishment. I was disturbed to hear about the use of corporal punishment in Phezulu High School and particularly to learn that the governing body had apparently condoned its reintroduction. I understand that the use of corporal punishment in KwaZulu- Natal is more widespread than this single incident indicates. Corporal punishment is illegal in our schools and if teachers and governing bodies need to be reminded of this fact then we must campaign on this issue in clear terms.

Third, last month Human Rights Watch released a report on farm schools in which we were condemned for failing to honour our constitutional obligation to provide basic education. We have already recognised the problem and established a committee to investigate. The committee was established specifically to address issues related to the problems of rural education, to explore conditions of rural schooling including the phenomena of platooning and double shifts. The work of the committee started in March 2004 and it will report in November 2004. I look forward to our ministerial report on rural schooling.

I thank you.

(1) A. Kraak, An Overview of South African Human Resources Development (HSRC Press, 2004), pp. 13-15.

Issued by: Ministry of Education
21 June 2004

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