Date: 28/09/2004
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: N Pandor: Woolworths Trust Eduplant 2004 awards
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION, NALEDI PANDOR, AT THE WOOLWORTHS TRUST EDUPLANT 2004 AWARDS, Summit College, Fourways, Johannesburg, 28 September 2004
Award winners
Ladies and gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to be with you this afternoon. It is most encouraging to note that from a humble start in 1994 as an annual competition for schools, Eduplant has grown into a fully-fledged development programme that promotes food gardening and greening at a large number of schools.
Eduplant has to be congratulated for developing and sustaining activities that have helped hundreds of schools through promoting the growing of organic food for improved nutrition and promoting the growing of trees for improved environments. For many schools and communities, exposure to the networking and training opportunities offered by Eduplant have probably been life changing by opening the prospect of new opportunities and possibilities. (1)
The Eduplant initiative has resulted in a number of important learning and development opportunities. Learners have become familiar with permaculture, an organic system of farming and gardening that combines people and plants in a way that produces more energy than it uses. In addition, many schools now use their projects to implement active learning. They grow their own food, harvest, conserve and manage water, recycle waste, generate income for the school, run outreach projects and much more.
As you are all aware, many of our schools in poor areas still reflect the neglect that is the legacy of apartheid. Apart from poor academic performance and resources, they are often underused, unsafe at the end of the school day, and unable to render a positive contribution to their community. All this, despite our best efforts to transform them. The government has taken the lead in promoting the achievement of equity and redress; however, it has acknowledged that government cannot transform the system on its own. We have emphasised the importance of strategic partnerships such as those illustrated today, as a means of meeting the needs of our children and our communities.
It has long been government policy to develop schools as community hubs that involve formal learning, adult education, and broad based community development. There are many exciting projects, both those promoted by the DoE and by our partners in development, that have the capacity to do this more and more.
This event occurs at an important time in our calendar. The first week of September was arbour week. My colleague, the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, in a speech to celebrate our heritage and the value of trees to our lives, pointed out that if you fly over most cities in South Africa, you can see the glaring legacy of apartheid in the differences between the treeless townships and the green suburbs. That is why they are called leafy suburbs, because trees beautify. But not only that. Trees give off oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide and dissipate pollution. As is well known places without trees are more polluted than places with trees.
Greening programmes at schools not only improve the environment, they are also potent resources for social development in combination with food gardening.
The lessons of the Eduplant initiative draw attention to several critical issues.
Currently South Africans face a wide spectrum of food security challenges. According to Statistics South Africa 35% of the total population is vulnerable to food insecurity and among those affected, women, children and the elderly are the most at risk (Stats SA: Measuring Poverty in SA, 2000). Food insecurity and malnutrition are highest in provinces with large rural populations - KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Free State and the Northern Province.
In order to respond to the food insecurity challenge, the government decided to launch a national food security strategy, the Integrated Food Security Strategy (IFSS). The goal of the strategy is to reduce the number of food-insecure households by half by 2015. Its primary objective is to overcome rural food insecurity by increasing the participation of food insecure households in productive agriculture sector activities and thereby creating both forward and backward linkages that will spread, resulting in growth and development benefits to all South Africans.
As part of this strategy, in 1994 the integrated nutrition programme and the primary school nutrition programme were launched. In April 2004 the primary school nutrition programme was transferred from the Department of Health to Department of Education and is now known as the national school nutrition programme.
The aim of the programme is to enhance the learning capacity of learners through alleviating short-term hunger, through facilitating the establishment and support of sustainable food production activities in schools - which would also be extended to communities - and through enhancing the curriculum through encouraging learning about food and nutrition.
One of the strategic objectives of the programme is to embark on facilitating the establishment of sustainable food production in schools in the form of vegetable gardens or the keeping of small stock like poultry and rabbits.
So learners and their families will benefit by acquiring food production skills and knowledge that they will use in their home gardens or small stock units and thus contribute towards their families
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: N Pandor: Woolworths Trust Eduplant 2004 awards
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION, NALEDI PANDOR, AT THE WOOLWORTHS TRUST EDUPLANT 2004 AWARDS, Summit College, Fourways, Johannesburg, 28 September 2004
Award winners
Ladies and gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to be with you this afternoon. It is most encouraging to note that from a humble start in 1994 as an annual competition for schools, Eduplant has grown into a fully-fledged development programme that promotes food gardening and greening at a large number of schools.
Eduplant has to be congratulated for developing and sustaining activities that have helped hundreds of schools through promoting the growing of organic food for improved nutrition and promoting the growing of trees for improved environments. For many schools and communities, exposure to the networking and training opportunities offered by Eduplant have probably been life changing by opening the prospect of new opportunities and possibilities. (1)
The Eduplant initiative has resulted in a number of important learning and development opportunities. Learners have become familiar with permaculture, an organic system of farming and gardening that combines people and plants in a way that produces more energy than it uses. In addition, many schools now use their projects to implement active learning. They grow their own food, harvest, conserve and manage water, recycle waste, generate income for the school, run outreach projects and much more.
As you are all aware, many of our schools in poor areas still reflect the neglect that is the legacy of apartheid. Apart from poor academic performance and resources, they are often underused, unsafe at the end of the school day, and unable to render a positive contribution to their community. All this, despite our best efforts to transform them. The government has taken the lead in promoting the achievement of equity and redress; however, it has acknowledged that government cannot transform the system on its own. We have emphasised the importance of strategic partnerships such as those illustrated today, as a means of meeting the needs of our children and our communities.
It has long been government policy to develop schools as community hubs that involve formal learning, adult education, and broad based community development. There are many exciting projects, both those promoted by the DoE and by our partners in development, that have the capacity to do this more and more.
This event occurs at an important time in our calendar. The first week of September was arbour week. My colleague, the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, in a speech to celebrate our heritage and the value of trees to our lives, pointed out that if you fly over most cities in South Africa, you can see the glaring legacy of apartheid in the differences between the treeless townships and the green suburbs. That is why they are called leafy suburbs, because trees beautify. But not only that. Trees give off oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide and dissipate pollution. As is well known places without trees are more polluted than places with trees.
Greening programmes at schools not only improve the environment, they are also potent resources for social development in combination with food gardening.
The lessons of the Eduplant initiative draw attention to several critical issues.
Currently South Africans face a wide spectrum of food security challenges. According to Statistics South Africa 35% of the total population is vulnerable to food insecurity and among those affected, women, children and the elderly are the most at risk (Stats SA: Measuring Poverty in SA, 2000). Food insecurity and malnutrition are highest in provinces with large rural populations - KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Free State and the Northern Province.
In order to respond to the food insecurity challenge, the government decided to launch a national food security strategy, the Integrated Food Security Strategy (IFSS). The goal of the strategy is to reduce the number of food-insecure households by half by 2015. Its primary objective is to overcome rural food insecurity by increasing the participation of food insecure households in productive agriculture sector activities and thereby creating both forward and backward linkages that will spread, resulting in growth and development benefits to all South Africans.
As part of this strategy, in 1994 the integrated nutrition programme and the primary school nutrition programme were launched. In April 2004 the primary school nutrition programme was transferred from the Department of Health to Department of Education and is now known as the national school nutrition programme.
The aim of the programme is to enhance the learning capacity of learners through alleviating short-term hunger, through facilitating the establishment and support of sustainable food production activities in schools - which would also be extended to communities - and through enhancing the curriculum through encouraging learning about food and nutrition.
One of the strategic objectives of the programme is to embark on facilitating the establishment of sustainable food production in schools in the form of vegetable gardens or the keeping of small stock like poultry and rabbits.
So learners and their families will benefit by acquiring food production skills and knowledge that they will use in their home gardens or small stock units and thus contribute towards their families
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