Issued by: Ministry of Education
24 May 2001
Madam Speaker
The theme of my budget address this year is "Turning our Mogomotsis into Rutasetjhabas".
Last week, as I was preparing this speech, I was - I must admit - influenced by the goings-on at two different schools.
At the first of these schools, a gang of students went on the rampage, accusing their principal of fraud and embezzlement, blockading a national highway, and stoning cars in the process.
At the second of these schools, a determined group of teachers, students and parents managed to pull their school back from the brink, and - with much sweat and tears - created a safe environment in which honesty, hard work and dialogue seemed finally to win the day.
The first of these schools was Mogomotsi High School in Warrenton in the Northern Cape where the students had rioted, it was reported, "to get the attention of the education department."
The other school is Rutasetjhaba Secondary School in Evaton, the winner of one of our most improved schools awards which we announced earlier this year. At this school, the Matric pass rate improved to 70% in 2000 from 19% in the previous year due to an intensive intervention programme driven by the principal, Mr Hatane, and district education officials. I greet Mr Hatane, his staff and his students. I also greet the Malatse Motsepe High School in Mmakau which was the overall winner of the most improved schools awards.
What brings a lump to my throat is the reminder of something that is all too often forgotten as we struggle with the beast of transforming our society and reforming our education system. It is something so simple that is taken for granted by those of us who were fortunate enough to have attended functional, healthy schools, but something that is entirely foreign to so many South African students. It is the experience of schools as places that can and do play a redemptive role in the lives of young people. It is the experience of public education as a vehicle that really does assist us in realising our dreams; that really does work, as our Constitution puts it so magnificently, to "free the potential" of all of us - regardless of where we come from or how badly stacked the odds are against us when we first enter those school gates.
I was, of course, extremely impressed with how quickly and effectively the Northern Cape provincial department handled things in Warrenton. But why, I asked myself, did students feel that they needed to embark on a rampage to be heard? Why, if there were accusations of fraud and embezzlement did matters not follow set procedures, or did students not wait for these procedures to take place?
The answer, of course, is all too obvious. In too many of our educational institutions, the attainment of excellence, the practice of mutual respect and the experience of healthy and constructive dialogue remain unattainable dreams. And the less attainable they appear to be, the more frustrated and cynical we become. It is this cycle of hopelessness and ineffectiveness my Department and I are determined to break in the education sector.
It is for this reason that I have begun my speech with the discussion of these two schools - Rutasetjhaba and Mogomotsi. I wish to remind us all that schools and colleges and universities are living organisms, real places, in which we all have a stake, for we are all their owners and we are all their beneficiaries. Unless we fully internalise the notion that our educational institutions belong to all of us and that we are all responsible for them, we will be have more Mogomotsis and fewer Rutasetjhabas. The Freedom Charter tells us that "The Doors of Culture and Learning Should Be Opened!" But who is to open them if not ourselves?
That, indeed, was the spirit of Peoples' Education - the spirit with which we came to power in 1994. We find ourselves, seven years later, in a very different environment, and at this juncture - at the end of my second year as Minister of Education - it seems to me to be an appropriate moment to take stock of how the process of education reform has developed in post-Apartheid South Africa, and where we must take it now if we are to turn all our Mogomotsis into Rutasetjhabas; so that our students end up, not in jail or alcoholic dissolution or alienated poverty, but in a college, technikon or university and then on to a life as productive, responsible, empowered and fulfilled members of our society.
Two years ago, President Thabo Mbeki said in his State of the Nation Address that, "education and training must constitute the decisive driver in our efforts to build a winning nation."
Last year, together with my departmental officials, we developed a strategic plan - with clearly laid down indicators - for implementing a national mobilisation programme for education under the slogan Tirisano - working together. But before I lead you through an assessment of how successful this plan has been and what still needs to be done, it is imperative, I feel, to place it within the context of education reform since 1994 in this country. My Ministry is distributing, today, a document entitled "Education in South Africa: Achievements Since 1994". This document identifies three distinct phases in education reform in this country, following the advent of democracy.
The First Period of Education Reform was from 1994 to 1997, and involved creating the framework for transformation. It had as its central task replacing minority rule and its balkanised, racially resourced institutions with a democratic order marked by non-racialism and non-sexism.
With these commitments in mind, and with a new framework now in place, we embarked upon our Second Period of Educational Reform, which took place between 1998 and 2000, and which involved moving from frameworks to action. The cornerstone of this was, of course, Tirisano, and the point was to aim for stronger accountability for performance and delivery across the system.
We are now in a Third Phase, Madam Speaker. It is a phase where we are attempting to move to institutionalisation and consolidation; where, having met some of the key challenges of systemic reform, we are now focused on creating greater equity and quality of learning conditions, greater professionalism and thus improved standards and learner outcomes.
In 1994, the pre-democratic government was spending five times as much per white learner as opposed to, for example, a black learner in the Transkei. It is true that we have made huge strides in redressing these iniquities: since 1994, government has succeeded in reducing the differential between provinces by more than 50%, a remarkable achievement. Nonetheless, we are still have a long way to go in achieving equity in our schooling system.
Similarly, with teachers, we have been successful in bringing the number of learners per educator down to an average of 34 nationally. Our rationalisation process has been extremely successful too: over 30 000 teachers have been moved to new posts, in schools where they are most needed, without a single forced retrenchment. This has been a major accomplishment, and has made a dramatic difference in many poorer schools. We are now ending with this process. I wish to congratulate teachers and their representative unions for their willingness to make these sacrifices in the interests of education.
The School Funding Norms and Standards policy which took effect in 1999 mandates a "poverty-targeted" approach to budgeting for non-personnel expenditure by the Provinces. This means that the poorest schools get, on average, seven times more funding than the richest ones. Incidentally I note that in Paris, recently, the honourable Leader of the Opposition proudly announced this as a deliberate policy of the Western Cape government - there is nothing more gratifying than seeing the Opposition so confidently appropriating national Government policy which all the Provinces have implemented.
In 1996, the Department of Education undertook the first ever school infrastructure survey. I will shortly release the results of the School Register of Needs 2000 Survey, which affords us the important opportunity to assess progress in the period from 1996 to 2000 which states that:
But the backlog is still huge and the differentiation between rich and poor schools within the public system still unacceptable. Of major assistance in this regard will be the R1.5 billion in additional funds that education is to receive under the MTEF, as a conditional grant for physical infrastructure. I should also add that three years ago we spent approximately R200 million on Learner Support Material whilst this year for the first time we will be spending just over R1 billion, due in large part to having put in place the correct machinery and processes which also ensured that, in the main, the delivery of materials occurred on time.
In the area of equitable redistribution of education resources, I must mention the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), something in which we can all truly take pride, for it has facilitated the entry of large numbers of students who would otherwise simply not have been able to go to university or technikon. Since 1996, government's contribution to the scheme has been over R2 billion to the benefit of well over 200 000 students. In this budget alone, R450 million is earmarked for the NSFAS with at least an additional R150 million recouped from loan repayments from past students.
I am delighted to announce, too, that we have succeeded in increasing enrolment in schools dramatically. Currently, South Africa has one of the highest enrolment rates for children of school-going age, compared to other developing countries. Over twelve million students are in school, representing more than 90% of all children between the ages of seven and fifteen years. Most of our gains have been with regard to poor, African and rural children, and our participation rate for girls is among the highest in the world. Our pass rate for 2000 increased by 9% in the matriculation examination, and we are expecting the minimum of a further 5% in 2001, with improvements particularly amongst the worst performing schools to which special attention is being paid. This year we will also target mathematics, science, technology and history and ensure that there are trainers on the ground from next year for maths and science.
While most of our children do indeed attend schools, we are still a far way off from providing them with education in a safe and productive environment for those hours in the day where they are our responsibility.
To this end, we have made School Effectiveness and Educator Professionalism one of the lead programmes in our Tirisano implementation plan. Central to this programme is the improving of communication and dialogue which means opening up channels of dialogue between parents and teachers, between teachers and officials, so that teachers feel valued and officials feel that their directives have been adhered to rather than stonewalled. We will also be continuing with the implementation our Whole School Evaluation programme which will assist schools to ensure overall improved performance in the provision of education.
Schools cannot be effective, obviously, if they are not managed properly. But neither can they be effective if they are not governed properly - and if the communities in which they are located do not own them. To this end we have committed ourselves to giving priority to the development of School Governing Bodies. All provincial departments have now completed the election of new SGBs, and our emphasis has thus now shifted from advocacy to training. The National Association of School Governing Bodies has been established, as a forum for the sharing of information on good governance practices.
Madam Speaker, perhaps the most high profile and far-reaching of our programmes in improving school effectiveness has been The Review and Streamlining of Curriculum 2005. At the "Values in Education" Conference in February this year, our distinguished speaker, Professor Edward Said, made the point that education should be about the activation rather than the stuffing of minds, and I cannot think of a better way to describe outcomes-based education. Right now, I have a team of working groups preparing National Curriculum Statements for the nine new learning areas for the General Education and Training Band - which is Grade R to Grade 9. These statements will be completed by July, for field-testing in 2002, refining in 2003 and implementation in 2004. We are going to be frank and systematic with this examination. In the meanwhile, work continues on the implementation of grades 5 and 9 in 2002, as originally planned.
I am most encouraged by the work and the ideas that have come out of the curriculum review process. There will be clear and easily comprehensible guidelines for teachers on learning outcomes, content and assessment. There will be more learning time for literacy and numeracy training. There will be a core cadre of trainers to provide professional support to teachers. There will be new learning area statements for technology and economic and management sciences and a renewed focus on history.
In addition, we need to embrace multilingualism as a key value in South African education. We have had a policy on language in education in place in the department since 1997 stating that, "being multilingual should be a defining characteristic of being South African."
There are two ways in which we can - and must - realise our Language in Education Policy. The first is to put into place dual-medium education and the second is to ensure that all South Africans, regardless of their mother tongues, learn at least one other South African language well enough to be able to communicate fluently and effectively in them. If a home language is English or Afrikaans, then he or she should learn an indigenous African language too.
Madam Speaker, the Curriculum 2005 review process deals only, at this stage, with Grades R to 9, the ten years of compulsory education. But much is happening in the further education sector - which deals with the Senior Certificate (or Matric) exams too. For the very first time this year, students across the country will write the same examinations in five key subjects: Accounting, Science, Mathematics, Biology and English. This represents a significant victory towards the establishment of common standards countrywide.
A key and important sector of our education system is the Technical Colleges. These colleges are best positioned to deliver the intermediate skills within the Government's recently announced Human Resources Development Strategy which was developed jointly by the Departments of Labour and Education. However, whilst some of these colleges have displayed curriculum innovation and efficiency, the sector as a whole has too many institutions that are small and offering programmes that are out of touch with the human resource needs of a new and democratic South Africa. In many cases, there is duplication of programmes and facilities.
My provincial colleagues, the MECs for Education and I, are finalising a report that will reduce the number of these colleges from 152 to a number of large, multi-site institutions that are dynamic and responsive to local community and private sector needs. These colleges will be positioned to promote wider access, social inclusion, and to encourage lifelong learning.
At the other end of school life we have also, in the past year, made significant strides in the most neglected area of education - that of Early Childhood Development. The new national policy on admission to public schools and age-grade norms came into effect in January 2000: we have already seen the positive effects of this, in terms of uniformity and efficiency. We expect to see, very soon, the further benefits of reduced repetition and dropout rates. I am certain that our ECD programming will address outstanding concerns and lay the basis for far better ECD than has ever been provided in the past. In April, Cabinet approved the outline for the implementation of Grade R - the Reception year - for five-to-six year olds that will become part of the band of compulsory general education.
I wish to note too that we have a White Paper on Special Education, to be considered by Cabinet next week. It outlines plans for the establishment of the first thirty district support services, the renewal of special schools, the mobilisation of some 280,000 out-of-school disabled students, and the establishment of 500 full-service schools.
Madam Speaker, another key area of education reform is that of Educator Development. In the past year, norms and standards have been completed and promulgated, as have the incorporation of teacher training colleges into designated universities and technikons. A three-year programme for the professional upgrading of 30 000 teachers will begin in July 2001, with a further 10 000 teachers to be trained by selected distance and open learning universities. Financial aid to the extent of R90 million will be made available to teachers from funds set aside for the upgrading of under-qualified teachers by the Education Labour Relations Council.
Our gravest concern in this area is the critical situation in Maths, Science and Technology education, where the shortage of qualified teachers and the lack of access to technology are limiting students' choices for study and careers. The Deputy Minister will deal with the Government's plans in this area in more detail.
The Government has committed itself to invest in the development of information communication technology infrastructure and we have established an Education Technology Forum, a partnership with the private sector, various parastatals and NGOs, to assist us with the task of achieving universal connectivity by 2010.
I cannot emphasise enough the importance of role modelling in our education system. The surest route to cynicism, to alienation and even to criminality is through the observation of hypocrisy in figures of authority. The South African Council of Educators (SACE), a statutory body, is up and running: all teachers must register with it and adhere to its code of conduct. Furthermore, legislation has also been passed this year which allows for the summary dismissal of teachers who are found guilty of sexual and physical abuse, of fraud and embezzlement, of the use of drugs and alcohol on campus, or of having sexual relations with students at the school at which they teach. But all the proscription in the world will not work if teachers do not regain the respect they once had in our communities.
Linked to this is another key area of intervention: that of School Safety. No real learning can take place in an environment of fear and illegality. Neither can the values of the Constitution be seeded in young South Africans in an environment where they are being flouted daily, with impunity. The rule of law must be enforced within schools -with all members of the community adhering to a common code of conduct, and safety of schools must become a priority. But no matter how high the fences are or how jacked up the security system, a school and its community are indivisible, and unless a school sees itself as part of its community, and engages in the broader fight against crime in its community, it will not be safe itself. We must encourage communities to reclaim their local schools and turn them into sites of community activity.
Making schools safe means cracking down on sexual abuse and physical violence in and around the school premises including the barbarism of so-called initiation ceremonies, and the violence by some principals and teachers who continue illegally to inflict corporal punishment.
Next month I will be releasing a document that emphasises key strategies, across the education sector, for seeding the values of the Constitution in young South Africans. These will include nurturing a culture and ethos that is truly South African in our schools; bringing back the rule of law in schools; promoting commitment as well as competence among teachers; ensuring that every South African is able to read, write, count and think; promoting anti-racism in schools; freeing the potential of girls as well as boys; creating a culture of sexual and social responsibility, and nurturing a new patriotism. This document is a precursor for the input to the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances to be held in Durban in August.
Madame Speaker. I have spent the bulk of my time concentrating on schools. I will turn now to three other lead programmes that my Department has undertaken as part of the Tirisano campaign. The first is our literacy programme, the second is our campaign against HIV/AIDS, and the third is our continuing efforts to rationalise and renew the higher education sector.
Literacy:
There are about 6 million either totally or functionally illiterate adults in this country. This is an unacceptable situation, we are determined that we will break the back of illiteracy in this country by the year 2004. In July 2000, we published the first national audit of public adult learning centres: there were 2,226 public adult learning centres and 13,628 teachers. But there were only 271,701 students, mainly at further education and training levels. I fear that unless this country is willing to take the plunge and join in the campaign to render South Africa literate, I fear that we will not be able to meet the timetable. Implementation of the strategic plan will begin in June 2001 in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal and later during the year expanded to the 18 rural and urban development nodes throughout the country. As part of our programme is the Masifunde Sonke initiative which includes this year as a focus year on reading to help develop a culture of reading in our country.
It is imperative too, Madame Speaker, that we mobilise our communities around HIV/AIDS, and this is another lead programme of our Tirisano campaign. Education is central to counteract HIV/AIDS. Most children enter the education system HIV-negative; an unacceptable number leave school HIV-positive, and many more become HIV-positive shortly after leaving. If the education system were able to influence children's' ideas about sex and relationships even before these start, we would play the key role in changing the course of the epidemic. We have no other option.
It is for this reason that I have declared our response to HIV/AIDS the "priority which underlies all priorities". To this end, we are intensifying our response to include a number of key projects: HIV/AIDS within and across the curriculum; workplace policies and programmes for all our staff including educators; the development of a national plan that aligns our planning and management systems; and the development of a system of responding to the needs of the ever increasing numbers of orphans and learners in distress or with special needs due to HIV/AIDS.
I have committed myself and my department to hosting a national conference on HIV/AIDS in the education sector, in the course of 2002. Moreover, in July of this year, we shall convene a national conference on sexuality in education, with emphasis on HIV/AIDS.
The third and final programme of the Tirisano campaign I wish to address has to do with Higher Education. We are investing over R7 billion in this area in the current financial year, and our expectations for returns on this investment are equally high. My sense, Madame Speaker, is that we have moved from impatience with the difficulties of transforming higher education to one of an understanding of its role. We have also arrived at political consensus that the transformation agenda for higher education must be radical and comprehensive.
Our implementation agenda is set out in the watershed National Plan for Higher Education, which I presented to the National Assembly last month. The Plan establishes targets for the size and shape of the higher education system, lays out the steps that need to be taken to ensure the requisite diversity of institutions and the roles that they should play, and proposes the restructuring of the sector by reducing the number of institutions and recommending mergers where appropriate. However, no sites of learning will be closed.
I need to assure this House, however, that although this approach is indeed more pronouncedly interventionist than in the past, it does not - despite certain claims to the contrary - infringe on institutional autonomy or academic freedom unless autonomy is read as licence for individuals to treat public institutions as private fiefdoms. I need to assure this chamber, too, that I am fully cognisant of both the key roles played by historically black institutions in our society's development and the ways in which these institutions have been disadvantaged in the past, and that any radical proposals to the future of these institutions will be dealt with sensitively and responsibly. Let me make one point clear. This plan will be implemented in its entirety as it has been carefully thought through and backed fully by the Government.
I can report to you that the implementation of the Plan is well on track. The National Working Group, under the able leadership of Mr Saki Macozoma, has started its work and will be advising me shortly on its recommendations, particularly with respect to the restructuring of institutions. Work is already underway to implement those mergers and incorporations I have already announced. The establishment of National Institutes of Higher Education in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape is also an exciting development that will help to shape the future provision of quality higher education in these parts of our country.
There is a great deal more that has been done. But in the Department, we are never satisfied. If we are to live up to the public claims of cherishing all the children of the nation equally, then we must work in unity, with professionalism and with passion to achieve this moral imperative.
I would like to thank, first, the Deputy Minister who has brought his usual thoroughness and commitment to bear on education. I would also like to thank the Portfolio Committee for its support over the last year as well as my Director-General and staff of the Department and all my provincial colleagues and their staff who have worked, at times facing enormous odds, to achieve a better life for all in education.
I will end, Madame Chair, as I began. One of the most memorable extracts from a study on our schools is a focus group comment that was made by a Mamelodi teacher who is quoted as saying:
Apartheid had one good thing. It kept us together. We had a common enemy to fight. We helped each other. When the common enemy went we were suddenly left alone and cannot find the same powerful thing to hold us together. Each one for himself. And this has ruined a sense of community.
My bravest hope is that in the year to come - and in my remaining time as Minister of Education - we will all work, together with that Mamelodi teacher, to find something even more powerful to hold her community together; something so powerful that it will not only rebuild the sense of community she feels has evaporated, but will bond her community of Mamelodi into the larger community of South Africa. My bravest hope is that this cement, this glue, will be ground not out of the battle against a common enemy, but out of a battle for a common destiny. And that, Madam Speaker, is the best definition I can find for the mission of education and its relationship to the project of nation building.
I commend this budget vote on education to this House.
Siyabonga. I thank you.