In his Budget Speech earlier this year, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan singled out the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) as government’s key intervention to improve schooling.

However, in a reply to a parliamentary question, Minister Motshekga today revealed that the NECT is having no impact where it is implemented, despite expenditure of a quarter of a billion rand.

Minister Motshekga’s reply reveals that, since the NECT was established in 2013, almost R 270 million has been spent in 8 priority districts:

Priority districts	*2013/14	2015
	R’000	R’000
North West Province: Bojanala District	4 103 994	11 378 312
Mpumalanga Province: Bohlabela District	4 483 993	12 431 859
Limpopo Province: Waterberg District	15 027 884	31 100 088
Limpopo Province: Vhembe District	16 064 289	33 244 922
Eastern Cape Province: Mt Frere District	13 009 705	11 423 206
Eastern Cape Province: Libode District	13 877 019	12 184 753
KwaZulu-Natal Province: Pinetown District	14 727 994	25 827 008
KwaZulu-Natal Province: UThungulu District	18 348 283	32 175 546

Despite this expenditure, the matric pass rate has declined in all but one of the districts targeted by the NECT:

Priority districts	2013	2014	2015
North West Province: Bojanala District	87.2%	84.6%	81.5%
Mpumalanga Province: Bohlabela District	72.0%	76.8%	76.7%
Limpopo Province: Waterberg District	70.6%	70.5%	58.1%
Limpopo Province: Vhembe District	80.6%	81.1%	74.7%
Eastern Cape Province: Mt Frere District	58.8%	55.1%	55.1%
Eastern Cape Province: Libode District	60.1%	62.4%	48.6%
KwaZulu-Natal Province: Pinetown District	81.5%	75.8%	64.6%
KwaZulu-Natal Province: uThungulu District	72.7%	64.0%	54.6%

In the uThungulu District of KwaZulu-Natal, for example, the pass rate dropped by 18.1% from 72.7% in 2013 to 54.6% in 2015. The average drop in pass rate across all 8 priority districts was 8.7%.

These statistics rather undermine Minister Gordhan’s faith in the NECT as the solution to our schooling crisis. We call on Minister Motshekga to provide a detailed report-back on the performance of the NECT in her Budget Speech on Tuesday.

 

Issued by DA