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SECTION27 is dumbfounded by the deafening silence in respect of basic education in President Zuma’s state of the nation address (SONA) on Thursday 11 February 2016.  Basic education constitutes the largest portion of planned government expenditure at 16.7 percent and yet schooling remains a crisis. 

South Africa has a declining matric pass rate and performs the worst of all middle-income countries in cross-national assessments. Civil society has repeatedly had to return to court to demand improved education provisioning at the poorest schools in respect of the most basic requirements necessary for learning and teaching to occur.

Organisations have turned to the courts for infrastructure, teacher provisioning, furniture and textbooks.  Last year SECTION27 and Basic Education For All (BEFA) were forced to go to the Supreme Court of Appeal to defend the high court judgment that held that every learner is entitled to a textbook in every subject at the commencement of the academic year. Government had appealed this ruling and lost.

In a speech delivered during a three-day education lekgotla in January 2016, which was attended by education MECs and department heads, Education Minister Angie Motshekga acknowledged that basic education is characterised by “pockets of disasters” and is a “national catastrophe”.

Despite the Minister’s acknowledgement we are yet to see concrete plans about how her department will deal with this national crisis. In the SCA judgment on the Limpopo Textbooks Case, Navsa J said that “It cannot be emphasised enough that basic education should be seen as the primary driver of transformation” and so the lack of political will demonstrated by the President’s speech is of serious concern.

President Zuma appeared to focus on addressing the low levels of South Africa's economic growth, but any serious plan to address this issue is flawed without a plan to simultaneously improve education outcomes in our country.

The time for paying lip service to improving education is now over. South African children deserve better.

Issued by Section27