National Assembly, 30th June 2009

Honourable Chairperson,

The enthusiasm that has been shown by both the Hon Ministers is welcome indeed.  But enthusiasm aside, our education system remains a skorokoro-type of a system.  Repair, start, push, start and push. The system is characterized by very serious policy weaknesses! The IFP has always argued that the successful implementation of the new curriculum depended on two conditions: Teachers with sufficient subject knowledge and well-resourced schools.

The recent studies have shown that with the closure of training colleges, the number of teacher graduates has dropped from 70 000 in 1994 to 6000 in 2006. Teacher attrition rate is currently estimated at 17 000 and 20 000 teachers lost to the system each year.

This is a crisis which needs urgent action. Open training colleges now!  But of course, it is also important to look after our teachers who are already in the system. Pay them well and in time!

Quality education is what we all want.  But the system is failing thousands and thousands of our children. All this because of wrong policy choices and at times, ideologically-driven transformation.

Let me refer to some of these policies:

1. Deployment Policy

This policy has given rise to many educational evils.

One, the educational agenda is subjected to the political agenda of the ANC.

Two, wrong and incapable people are put into crucial and strategic positions. With all the money in the world, how does the department hope to achieve quality education if it is still seized with such defective deployment policy?

2. Policy of half-measures

In an attempt to introduce free and compulsory education, the Department has resorted to measures which have, instead of delivering quality education, has perpetuated educational inequalities.

So, what must be done? We propose the following:

a. Do away with the no-fee schools policy, introduce instead education which is completely free and compulsory up to and including grade 12, thereby doing away with the half-measures characterizing the status-quo.

b. Do away with the classification of schools into section 20. This has led to many delays in the provision of essential services to schools and has also led to corruption where Departmental officials collude with principals in the awarding of tenders.

c. We must minimize the use of third-party agencies in the distribution of text books and stationery, take for example Indiza which was awarded a multimillion rand tender to deliver text books in KwaZulu-Natal schools and never delivered. Look at the feeding scheme in the Eastern Cape which has collapsed completely and as we debate now, thousands and thousands of children in schools in KZN are not being fed because feeding schemes there have also collapsed. What is the way forward? The IFP believes that existing staff at schools across the country must be capacitated in the acquisition and supply processes.

d. The Schools Act stipulates that a child who has to travel more than 10 kms to school must be provided with transport to and from school, yet Provincial Departments have decided to adopt half-measures and have failed miserably in providing decent transport for school children, and instead have been given bicycles for transport. Imagine having to ride your bike to school in the icy winter in the Eastern Cape or humid boiling hot days in KwaZulu-Natal? Surely government should feel embarrassed that they have not been able to deliver on this basic undertaking?

Lastly the IFP strongly believes that it is now high time for all schools to be opened up for routine inspections, because as it stands at this very moment, no-one, including the Honourable Minister, knows exactly what is going on inside the classrooms. For too long now Teacher Unions have protected that turf.

Discipline, of both learners and educators must be returned to schools.  Respect for authority and respect for the profession must be re-introduced. We must bring back a culture of accountability throughout the system, at educator and management levels.

I thank you.

Contact: Alfred Mpontshane, 083 441 6201.