Issued by the Ministry of Education
31 July 2000
1. (a) The Council of Education Ministers discussed and noted the promulgation of the following Acts:
(i) Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (No. 2 of 2000);
(ii) Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 2000 (No. 3 of 2000;) and
(iii) Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 2000 (No. 4 of 2000).
(b) The Council agreed to study the Acts and bring the information to the attention of Premiers and Provincial Executive Councils.
2. Alternatives to corporal punishment
(i) The Council noted that a pamphlet containing concrete alternatives to corporal punishment for circulation to schools is now available and will be tabled at the next meeting of the council.
3. National Qualifications Framework (NQF)
(a) The Council noted that the Minister will appoint - within the next two weeks - a review committee to focus on:
(i) domestic and global progress of the NQF;
(ii) the achievements of SAQA in its establishment of the NQF;
(iii) steps taken by Government to implement policies and legislation on the NQF; (iv) the extent to which the NQF had facilitated integration of education and training;
(v) the capacity of the education and training system to implement the NQF, Quality Assurance and National Standards Development in Higher Education; and
(vi) the capacity of SAQA and any other obstacles in establishing the NQF.
4. Report from the Gender Commission: Exclusion of pregnant girls from admission in schools
(a) The Council noted that the Minister had received a letter from Ms Phumele Ntombela-Nzimande, Deputy Chairperson: Commission on Gender Equality. In the letter she informed the Minister that the Gender Commission on Gender Equality had recently received a number of complaints from pregnant learners concerning the manner in which they had been treated by their schools. In all complaints, the learners had reported some form of discrimination, including suspension from classes.
(b) The Council also noted that Paragraph 3.9 of the Guidelines for the Consideration of Governing Bodies in Adopting a Code of Conduct, Government Gazette, Notice 776 of 1998, reads that "A learner who falls pregnant may not be prevented from attending school". A pregnant girl may be referred to a hospital school for pregnant girls".
(c) Council noted that it was illegal to exclude pregnant girls from school.
(d) The Minister would reply to the Gender Commission.
(e) Council agreed that MECs would discuss the matter with their Heads and that a circular would be issued to schools.
Council agreed that there was an urgent need to address the matter through sex education in schools. The Gauteng Education MEC, Mr Ignatius Jacobs, will table a paper in this regard in the next few months.
5. Progress report on the incorporation of colleges of education into Higher Education institutions
(a) The Council noted that the process of incorporating colleges of education continues to take place within the legislative framework provided by Section 21 of the Higher Education Act of 1997.
(b) Under section 21(1)(b), the Minister will declare the 27 "earmarked" colleges of education as subdivisions of existing universities and technikons. The Minister has declared his intentions with regard to six of the provinces. He will declare his intentions with regard to the remaining three provinces in the near future.
(c) First-year teacher education students should enrol at earmarked institutions for 2001. Special arrangements will be made to cater for final-year students, who would find it difficult to transfer to higher education programmes. Subsidies will be provided to institutions for hostel costs of students who have to take up residence because of the distance between receiving institutions and their homes.
6 Publication of the 2000 Senior Certificate examination results
The Council decided that:
(i) All provincial education departments would host their press conferences on 28/12/2000 and the release of the candidates' results in the press would take place on the same day.
(ii) The release of results by the Minister of Education will take place on 29/12/2000.
7. Additional data for inclusion in the report of Senior Certificate results
The council decided to approved in principle the need for the collection of data according to:
(aa) Race
(bb) Disability (as a separate group and also the type of disability)
(cc) Rurality (rural v urban)
(dd) Sign Language (as a separate subject and also as a first language) subject to the caveats that:
(1) The Council noted that this type of information was needed because it had implications for the funding of ordinary schools and systemic management. It could be useful to track improvement.
8. National Senior Certificate question papers
(a) The Council of Education Ministers approved the following proposal:
(i) A national paper will be set in the following subjects: Mathematics, English Second Language, Physical Science, Biology and Accounting.
(ii) The national papers would be set by a panel of examiners appointed by the national Department in collaboration with the provincial departments.
(iii) National papers would be marked at provincial level based on a nationally standardised marking process.
(iv) National papers in the other subjects would be set on a rotational basis.
(v) The nine Examining Bodies would continue to set the question papers in the other subjects and administer the examination as done currently.
(vi) The Northern Cape Department of Education and Gauteng Department of Education should reduced the number of question papers in English to two. The third paper that is, Creative Writing is currently being assessed internally, at school level. This is in keeping with the proposal from the Language Review Committee.
(vii) The only commonality amongst the nine PEDs is the language and comprehension paper.
9. Criteria for the recognition of teacher education programmes and the evaluation of qualifications for employment in education
(a) The Council noted that the National Norms and Standards for Teacher Education was gazetted as national policy on 8 September 1995. And that based on this, the document Criteria for the Evaluation of Qualifications for Employment in Education was gazetted as national policy on 8 March 1996.
(b) And that subsequently, the Minister gazetted the new Norms and Standards for Educators as national policy on 4 February 2000. As a consequence, the policy document Evaluation of Qualifications for Employment in Education had to be amended to align it with the new Norms and Standards.
(c) The purpose of this draft policy document on the criteria is three-fold:
(aa) Firstly, to provide guidelines to teacher education institutions on the implementation of the new Norms and Standards in the designing, approval and registration of new teacher education programmes and the phasing out of old programmes and qualifications.
(bb) Secondly, to provide amended criteria for the recognition of new qualifications and programmes, and for the evaluation of local and foreign individual qualifications for employment in education. The document also describes different learning paths for educators in order to enable them to improve their professional and academic competences through the attainment of additional advanced qualifications on the new qualifications framework. A new National Professional Diploma in Education has also been developed and included in the document, with the specific purpose to provide an opportunity for the development and certification of educators with qualifications below m+2.
(cc) Thirdly, since educators in Adult Basic Education and Training Centres have been included in the definition of an Educator, the document also provides for the recognition of existing qualifications in ABET for employment in education as an interim measure until the Standards Generating Body for ABET practitioners has designed and registered new qualifications through SAQA on the NQF.
(d) The Council approved the document Criteria for the Recognition and Evaluation of Qualifications for Employment in Education, that will serve as a mechanism and guideline to give effect to the implementation to the new Norms and Standards for Educators in practice,
10. Approval of school calendar for year 2002
(a) This was also approved by the Council (This will be circulated separately)
11. A report (Annual Survey of Public Adult Learning Centres 1999) for publication by the Department of Education
(a) The Council noted that the Adult Education and Training Directorate, in collaboration with the Education Management Information Systems Directorate, contracted the Human Sciences Research Council to conduct a survey on public Adult Learning Centres under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education in March 1999.
(b) The objectives of the project were:
(c) The Council approved the report Annual Survey of Public Adult Learning Centres 1999 for publication. This will promote effective planning, evaluation and management of the public Adult Education and Training system. A copy of the report will be made available at the meeting.
11. Report and Recommendations of the Task Team on the Incorporation into Higher Education of the South African College for Teacher Education (SACTE) and the South African College of Open Learning (SACOL)
(a) The Council noted that in 1999, the Heads of Education Committee (HEDCOM) requested the Department of Education (DoE) to establish a task team to investigate the two distance teacher education colleges (SACTE and SACOL) and to make recommendations concerning their future in the light of the incorporation of colleges of education into higher education institutions.
(b) Council approved that SACTE and SACOL should be incorporated into higher education as a sub-division of UNISA.
12. The Council also noted the following reports:
1 The Report: Values, Democracy and Education
2 Report on the workshop on partnerships for school improvement
3 Report on the lecture delivered at Peninsula Technikon, Cape Town on 20 June 2000
4 Report on the launch of the South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI)
5 Report on the workshop on moral regeneration
Finally, the Council received a presentation on fraudulent report cards. The Council noted that this is a problem that continues to manifest itself in some of our schools. It was agreed that the Department would continue with its investigations into the following areas:
Enquiries: Bheki Khumalo at 082 781 2660