Speech by the Deputy Minister of Education, the Honourable Mr M E Surty on Budget Vote 14, Education, National Council of Provinces, Cape Town

"Our democracy is still about dialogue, about expressing informed opinions, about expressing genuine outrage, about changing one's mind in the light of better arguments, about accepting both the joys of victory and the pains of defeat, about the rule of law, about the difference between right and wrong, about orderly, efficient and caring government; about rights and responsibilities and about the quest for beauty in intelligence, creativity, hope, kindness, humility, co-operation, friendliness, trust, conviction, respect and courtesy in our living environments. I would like us to reaffirm our common commitment to a new and better society." (Ndebele Njabulo)

Professor Njabulo Ndebele's words remind us all why we are here, to serve our people, to make sure that all promises made are kept. It also resonates well with the pledge we made as government, that of building a better life for all. In fulfilling this pledge, the Department of Education has committed itself to working with provinces in ensuring that learners from disadvantaged communities receive the nutrition, health care and the general academic physical and emotional support they need in order to participate actively in and benefit from their education. With regard to nutrition, the National School Nutrition Programme is being successfully implemented in most provinces with a total of 5 996 050 learners in 18 039 schools being provided with meals nationally.

Seven thousand vegetable gardens have been established in schools to date. Twelve assistant directors were deployed across all provinces to support schools with existing gardens and to assist schools establish food production projects. Two hundred and five workshops were conducted countrywide on basic gardening skills and rainwater harvesting. Partnerships with other government departments and the private sector enabled access to essential resources such as water tanks and garden implements. Yet there are challenges in procurement, payment and nutritional content, which must be addressed.

The Department of Education has made inroads in developing educational material for schools which promotes good nutrition and healthy lifestyles which will be distributed to all schools. In collaboration with the Financial and Fiscal Commission, the department is currently assessing the feasibility of extending the National School Nutrition Programme to include secondary school learners. This will address the concern about siblings from the same household in primary and high schools. Our challenge still remains in most of our rural schools. According to the Ministerial Committee on Rural Education the most important characteristic of rural education is poverty and therefore an integrated approach involving all relevant departments and other stakeholders has to be developed.

The department will be organising a national colloquium on rural education with relevant stakeholders including the Nelson Mandela Trust, the National House of Traditional Leaders, the business sector and other sister government departments. The colloquium must deal with the linkage between education and rural transformation, a linkage that seeks to underscore the inescapable forces of change rural and farm communities are faced with and how education can equip people with appropriate knowledge, skills and information to expand their choices and enable them to exercise these choices.

Our department is also using this financial year to revamp the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) system, as has been outlined in the Minister's Budget Vote Speech. The Minister has expressed her unease with the word basic in the acronym of ABET, suggesting that it should rather be referred to as Adult Education and Training. Some of the key interventions include the following:

* ensuring that the ABET Curriculum is more responsive in that learners are not only introduced to reading and writing programmes, but programmes that would include skills such as building, plastering, gardening, food production and electrical programmes to foster a positive response by ABET to the needs identified in response to Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA)
* researching where ABET learners are found so that classes can be offered at times suited to learners availability rather than perceptions that have resulted in exclusively night school classes for ABET
* reconsidering that ABET can only be offered in school rooms and looking at all possible sites where ABET classes could be delivered, including formal and informal places of business
* reviewing the ABET Act, to ensure that it facilitates ease of implementation of ABET programmes at all requisite levels.

As indicated in the Minister's Budget speech in the National Assembly, Cabinet has approved a report recommending the implementation of a mass literacy campaign in South Africa. The department has already started planning for the implementation of this campaign in the different provinces with the first intake of 1,2 million learners expected to be in February to March 2008. The campaign is targeting 4,7 million illiterate or functionally illiterate persons across the country. The operational plan for the implementation of this campaign will be presented to cabinet for approval shortly.

You may recall that during his 2001 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki directed that the Department of Sport and Recreation, the Department of Arts and Culture and our department should strive to inculcate the values of our democratic constitution in our young people. Sport, arts, culture and music are necessary vehicles to attain such an ideal. The department has established a unit - School Enrichment Unit to co-ordinate and strengthen the delivery of national extramural / extracurricular school enrichment programmes, not only to promote mass participation in sport by young people, but to promote social transformation and cohesion.

Some of the arts, culture and music flagship programmes our department has co-ordinated in collaboration with the Department of Arts and Culture, include the South African Schools Choral Eisteddfod, the National Indigenous Games, Music, and Movement Festival, as well as the National Language Festival and Concert. These national programmes involve thousands of young people throughout the country. Through these initiatives, learners are not only given the opportunity to showcase their talents, but also develop a love for and appreciation of many forms of music, dance and culture. Importantly these events provide learners from different provinces the opportunity to get together and develop an understanding of each other. This helps to build a common South African national identity.

I invite Honourable Members to attend the provincial championships of our Eisteddfod that will be held between June and July and the national championships which will be held from - 5 August 2007 at the Coca Cola Dome in Randburg. The National Indigenous Games and Festival will be held in East London in September as part of our Heritage Month celebrations. Learners will participate in indigenous games such as dibeke, jukskei, kgadi, morabaraba, drie-blikkies, scotch and tik-tok (a Khoi and San indigenous game). They will also demonstrate a wide variety of indigenous dances and movements and present a varied repertoire of indigenous and traditional music.

On 17 March 2005, the Ministers of Education as well as Sport and Recreation signed a framework for collaboration in school sport. The National Co-ordinating Committee (NACOC) envisaged in the School Sport Framework has been established. NACOC has drafted and adopted a five-year school sport programme for 2007-2011. School sport events such as the national schools' aquatics, national schools' athletics, the South African schools' winter games, summer games and cross country are part of the five-year programme co-ordinated by NACOC. It is important to note that NACOC is aiming to integrate the national schools' sport programme and make the programme as inclusive as possible.

Our department is co-ordinating extramural / extracurricular school enrichment programmes as a vehicle, not only to strengthen the implementation of the national curriculum statements, but also to promote moral regeneration and healthy physical and emotional well-being of our learners. This must surely lead to social transformation and cohesion through building a South African nation, grounded in the positive values of our constitution.

The journey that we have to travel is a long and arduous one. It is therefore appropriate to conclude by reflecting on the more than 500 000 learners who journey on foot more than one hour daily to and from school. To address this urgent need, the national department of education and transport together with the provincial departments of education and transport will meet to consider and develop policy proposals on the provision of alternatives, including bicycles, establishing of hostels, in sparsely populated areas, safety, regulations, subsidies and a range of other incidental issues affecting the transport of learners in our provinces.

Issued by: Department of Education
5 June 2007