Speech by Mr A M Mpontshane MP

Chairperson, Honourable Minister

It is almost guaranteed that no one in this House would argue against the development of an education system for the 21st century as stated by the aims of the Department. We are no doubt agreed that a transformed education system is fundamental to the future of our country. Still, such a transformed education system must at all times be responsive to a rapidly changing environment, not only in education but generally-speaking.

The Department of Education has set itself a range of ambitious goals.

These goals include early childhood development; assisting poorly performing schools through a variety of strategies; increasing maths and science intakes and outputs, in-depth policy review, support for Further Education and Training institutions and universities through research and provision of quality and relevant programmes and large infrastructural improvements.

The IFP supports these noble objectives and goals.

However, it is one thing to put down ambitious and nice sounding goals on paper; it is an entirely different thing to implement them and achieve success. If a competent and willing teaching corps and willing education managers do not support the plans and policies of the Department; there can be only one outcome: Implementation failure.

Although education has come a long way since 1994, and even though many achievements and successes can be noted, the system still suffers from structural weaknesses.

Some of these weaknesses are the lack of accountability at all levels; wastefulness and inefficiencies; the yawning gap between well-intentioned legislation and implementation of that legislation; the growing curse of lawlessness and indiscipline in our schools and the substandard or complete lack of delivery of learner support material like books.

These weaknesses are structural and linked to poor management of the system.
They are not related to funding. South Africa spends an enormous amount of money on education - which must be applauded - but no amount of funding can solve these structural weaknesses. One remedy that should be immediately recognised is the need for urgent attitudinal changes in managers and teachers.

There are of course other structural weaknesses that require direct budgetary intervention.

Some of these are the shortages of classrooms (about 30 000); poor working conditions, especially in the rural areas; inadequate, neglected or non-existent infrastructure (there are still some 4000 schools that either do not have running water or sanitation facilities); inadequate learner transport; very low teacher morale and education that lacks quality.

It is therefore pertinent to ask whether the current budget will be sufficient to address the inefficiencies and weaknesses in our education system.

The total national budget for education is just above R14 billion, but of course this excludes provincial allocations in terms of the Division of Revenue Act.

The allocations to the seven budget programmes reflect the department's priorities.

More than R11 billion is allocated to Higher Education, while the National Student Financial Aid Scheme receives R926 million more. These are increases of 9 and 7% respectively. R447 million more is allocated to Further Education and Training institutions to recapitalise them.

The National School Nutrition Programme receives more than a Billion Rand; while R144 million is allocated to HIV / AIDS training. Conditional grants to provinces this year amount to R1, 713 billion.

The IFP proposes that districts, being the lowest implementing level, should be given more powers and defined responsibilities. This would no doubt increase accountability and close the gap between legislation and implementation. In this respect, we also propose that education policies and legislation be urgently reviewed to ensure that implementation becomes the focus.

We also propose that monitoring and evaluation of teachers and schools be increased. Again this would assist accountability, performance and implementation.

The IFP strongly believes that the Department must focus more on rural areas where many of the benefits of and improvements in education have not yet filtered down to. In this respect, better transport for learners that live far away from rural schools must be non-negotiable.

The IFP supports providing incentives to teachers to attract them to rural areas. We also support incentives that will increase the overall supply of teachers, for instance in maths and science.

Finally, the IFP proposes that the capacity of school governing bodies be improved to enable them to play a better role in the education of their children

Chairperson,

This Education budget must be a corrective budget. The IFP supports such a budget.

I thank you.