TUESDAY, 5 JUNE 2007 __

          PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES
                                ____

The Council met at 14:01.

The Chairperson took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS – see col 000.

                          NOTICE OF MOTION

Mr M A MZIZI: Chairperson, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the Council I shall move on behalf of the IFP:

That the Council –

  1) notes that a Limpopo man intends suing the province’s Department of
     Health and Social Development after a  hospital  in  that  province
     failed to remove pieces of glass from behind his left eye;

  2) further notes that the man, Norman Mahlaule,  has  been  living  in
     pain, with the glass lodged behind his eye, for almost a year; and

  3) recognises that staff in government hospitals are very busy and  do
     work under enormous pressure, but  urges  all  hospital  staff  and
     officials to be vigilant and perform their duties with  the  utmost
     care in order to avoid incidents of negligence that could  cause  a
     patient unnecessary suffering and pain.

                         APPROPRIATION BILL

                           (Policy debate)

Vote No 14 – Education:

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: Sebakeng se ke tla bitša Tona ya tša Thuto, Mohlomphegi mma Naledi Pandor. Ebile o kile wa ba Modulasetulo wa Ngwako wo. Mma Naledi Pandor! [Legowa.] [At this moment I will call upon the Minister of Education, the hon Naledi Pandor. You were even the Chairperson of this House at one time. [Applause.]]

TONA YA THUTO: Modulasetilo, baetapele ba ba tlotlegang, ke a leboga. Ke itumetse thata go nna le lona tsatsi leno, go tla go bua le go tlotla ka selo se se leng botlhokwa thata mo lefatsheng la rona la Aforika Borwa, selo sa thuto.

Re kopano tsatsi jeno, ka nako e e tswanetseng e be e re tshwenya thata re le batsadi le bagolo mo Aforika Borwa. Bontsi ba bana ba rona ba ntse ba sa tsene sekolo go simolola Labotlhano wa maloba. Ga re itse gore go sanyeng sekolong ga bana ba rona, go tlile go nna lobaka lo lo kae, mme ke solofela gore baetapele botlhe ba ba leng mo Ntlong e, ba tla dumellana le nna gore ga re ka ke ra dumela gore bana ba rona ba latlhegelwe ke nako ya go ya sekolong, ka gore go latlhegelwa ke nako ke selo se se tshwenyang bokamoso ba bana ba rona.

Ke ema ke le fa, kena le tshepo ya gore re tlile go fedisa kgang e, ya go sa rute bana ba rona, ya go sa fodise ba ba lwalang, ya go sa thuse ba ba batlang thuso mo mmusong wa rona le mo diphaposing tsa rona tsa mmuso. (Translation of Setswana paragraphs follows.)

[The MINISTER OF EDUCATION: Thank you, Chairperson, hon leaders; I am very pleased to be here with you today, to talk about the most important thing in our country, South Africa, which is education.

We’ve gathered here today as worried parents and elders in South Africa. Most of our children have not attended school since last Friday. We do not know how long this is going to take, but I trust that all leaders who are in this House agree with me that our children cannot lose their time for schooling as this would affect their future.

I am standing here with the hope that we are going to solve this issue of not taking responsibility to teach our children, of not nursing those who are sick, and of not helping those in need of help in our government and in its service offices.]

I am also convinced that we must, and will, improve the remuneration of teachers in the education sector. We will devise a scale of remuneration and performance assessment that both recognises the important role that teachers play in society and provides irrefutable evidence that we are doing the job of educating the nation – a very important job, indeed.

At our meeting of the Council of Education Ministers yesterday we agreed on a draft framework for the creation of an occupation-specific category of remuneration for school principals and education managers. I am pleased that this aspect of the occupation-specific salary structure for principals and managers in education is integrated in the current proposed agreement on salaries and conditions of service that has been tabled by the Minister for the Public Service and Administration.

The proposed dispensation moves remuneration in education in a new direction that will improve remuneration while also providing a basis for increased accountability. In terms of figures, the proposal, with respect to school principals, will translate into an additional 7,5% increase for principals from 1 July 2007. This is, of course, over and above whatever general adjustment is agreed upon in the current dispute.

The occupation-specific dispensation gives due and necessary recognition to professionals in the Public Service. Its intention is to reward, recognise and attract skills to the public sector. The proposed agreement from the employer provides for the implementation of a similar framework for teachers from 1 January 2008 and from the following year for office-based educators and specialists in education.

It is my intention this year to initiate discussions with teacher organisations and education leaders in order to determine a framework for increased support and regular review of professional practices. I plan to continue working with teachers in an effort to secure the academic future of our children.

The awful history of denial of education and poor learning performance requires us, as South Africa’s education leaders, to plan and imagine beyond the confines of the positions we occupy in government and society. I hope to encourage the development of a set of agreed approaches which will move beyond sectoral polemics to real change for learners and students. A new approach will also demand a level of objective evaluation that has been missing in our public discourse. We will need to develop the courage to state the problems squarely and be prepared to deal with underperformance from members – friend or enemy. This is going to be a tough challenge, but I think we must adopt the courageous stand of the Gauteng MEC when she indicated that poor competence will not enjoy protection.

We have a duty to ensure learning, to ensure the realisation of every child’s potential and also to provide professionals and other workers with conditions of service that fully accredit the competence and ability we expect from educationists. I believe our activities this year will lead us to the point where we will create a firm basis for the kinds of outcomes I have described.

While I remain concerned at the impasse in salary negotiations, I believe we can today, and will, report real progress in education while also alerting this Council to challenges that must be given attention. The most valuable contributions today will be provided by our provincial colleagues. They are at the coalface of action and delivery and directly respond to that which must be done.

Today I thank the MECs and heads of education in provinces for their work – hard work, I know. But I will also continue to point to our inadequacies, many of which I sometimes share, not to score points in doing this but to indicate that there are challenges that we must engage with if we are to make real the promise of quality education for all our children.

Our Treasury reported a dramatic improvement in overall provincial spending last year. Provinces spent 98,7% of their combined adjusted budgets. However, there was both good and bad news for the education sector in this dramatic improvement in provincial spending. On the one hand, the 1,3% of provincial underspend amounted to R2,4 billion and was largely due to underexpenditure in seven provincial departments. The Free State and KwaZulu-Natal were the exceptions.

On the other hand, Treasury also reported that there was a notable improvement in capital expenditure in the provinces. In fact, capital expenditure at R3,7 billion, which is 96,5% of the capital budget, was R1 billion more than the R2,6 billion spent in 2005.

The increased capital expenditure is good news for education in itself, but it is also good news for another reason. It is an indication that we are reaching that target of an 80-20 split in the budget; 80% on personnel and 20% on nonpersonnel items. In the past, this split was always our target, but we were never able to reach it.

The consequence has been that personnel expenditure, which was always first call on our resources, crowded out the other two components of provincial education budgets. The capital costs for building, those for repairing schools, and goods and services budgets on items such as teaching material suffered as a result. With a growing consolidated education budget - R104,7 billion this year compared to R93,2 billion last year – and with a targeted 80-20 split achieved, we have, at last, money for school buildings and money for textbooks. [Applause.]

Let me say a few words about school infrastructure. And I see your clock going very fast, Chairperson, so I’m in a bit of trouble. [Laughter.] During the education budget last year I announced that I had initiated an update of the school register of needs. Colleagues will remember that. As some hon members will know, that mammoth, huge and comprehensive audit of schools has now been completed and we have for the first time a complete inventory of infrastructure at every school in South Africa.

The preliminary estimate is that the cost of making up the education infrastructure backlog at today’s prices is R40 billion, and this consists of a space backlog of R13,6 billion, a standards backlog of R19,8 billion and a condition backlog of R2,5 billion.

Modulasetilo o tshwanetse o tlhaloganye gore ga re dira tlotlo ya rona mo Ntlong e, re a ruta e bile re a bua. Jaanong go re fa nako e khutshwane ga go re thuse go dira dilo tse pedi tse. [Ditshego.] [Chairperson, you have to understand that when we engage in our discussion in this House, we teach and speak. Now, giving us little time does not assist us in this regard. [Laughter.]

Space refers to the fact that we had inadequate numbers of classrooms and learning spaces; standards means that our facilities are available, but below standard; and condition means that facilities are available but they have deteriorated because of a lack of maintenance. Those three aspects have to be addressed. The total replacement value of the asset we hold in education infrastructure is R119 billion.

Comparing the condition of schools today with the condition of schools measured in previous school registers of needs is fraught with difficulties; it is difficult to make really accurate comparisons. However, it would appear that we have made progress. In particular, we have made substantial progress in regard to the provision of basic services to schools.

The most notable improvement is in the provision of electricity, where 82% of schools, that is 20 330 schools, now have electricity; and 75% of them are connected to grid electricity, compared to 55% according to the second register in 2000 and 40% as indicated in the first register in 1996. This shows real progress.

We still have work to do on the costing of infrastructure improvements, and the steps we plan to take in remedy have begun to be worked out. The full report on the register of needs will be released for members’ attention in the next few weeks.

We must take into account and give appropriate weight to the huge underinvestment in black education, because it was one of the legacies of the apartheid era. When we talk about poor academic performance today, let us not forget to also talk about lack of infrastructure.

The education budget is the largest allocation of resources made by national government. This year, as I said, it is R104,7 billion and it is thus 5,53% of the gross domestic product; last year, it was R93,2 billion, which was 5,44% of the GDP.

Hon members, you will recall that in 2006 we also indicated to you that we would direct our efforts to improving learning outcomes in our schools. We planned to give specific attention to underperforming schools and to improve the matric performance of the class of 2006. Members know that we did not meet our planned matric target despite very positive improvements in several provinces.

This year, we began to take much stronger action against the principals of underperforming schools. We have found that massive differences result from a competent and engaged principal in a school. All provinces are paying attention to the need to provide training support and leadership development opportunities to our school principals.

The interventions by education departments have been developmental rather than merely punitive, but I have to say that we will not be afraid to act with vigour where punitive action becomes necessary. We cannot be tolerant of mediocrity and underperformance. We are giving increased attention to a clear job specification for school leadership in South Africa – a specification that makes it clear that learning and academic progress are a core performance requirement for school principals.

The advanced certificate in school leadership is being piloted this year. We regard this as a critical contribution to building a new pool of capable education leaders for our schools. We also plan to make better use of mentoring by linking new leaders to leaders in successful schools in order to build a system of school development that empowers through professional collaboration and partnership.

Another target in our improvement strategy is that of ensuring that teachers monitor learning achievement and skills acquisition from Grade 1 to Grade 12. We intend to intensify our efforts at Grades 11 and 12 as well as at all grades in our systems, because we believe that looking only at Grade 11 or Grade 12 will not lead us to national success. Every school grade must aim to promote successful learning and teaching of key skills. In addition to ensuring support to learners at all levels of the schooling system, we have strengthened our efforts at improving literacy and numeracy. We have provided reading books to over 10 000 schools as part of our strategy. School principals and teachers are being encouraged and supported in the teaching of reading and writing. Teaching aids for reading, assessment guides and other tools have been supplied to ensure that reading, writing and numeracy are key focus areas at all grades in the system.

We have made it clear to all schools that the national curriculum requires the teaching of reading, writing and numeracy from the foundation phase. Furthermore, we have begun to prepare our schools for regular assessment of reading and writing. Assessment and monitoring of each learner’s progress and ability will become a normal part of our schooling system. It’s too late to begin at Grade 12.

Our departments will be training and supporting teachers in implementing the newly developed early grade reading assessment which has been developed in six languages, for this year. The assessment will be piloted in 16 schools this year and then go to scale in 2008. The Council of Education Ministers has agreed that increased attention must be given to building school libraries and resourcing them to support our literacy strategy.

In 2008, we’ll have the third systemic evaluation of literacy and numeracy at Grade 3. We intend to work with our schools to ensure a better set of results than the outcomes of 2001 and 2004 evaluations. In 2006, we reported that we would expand our strategy for science, mathematics and technology. The Dinaledi schools’ initiative continues to grow with active support from all provinces. We’ve grown from 102 schools in 2004 to 462 schools in 2007. With proper resourcing and support, these schools can achieve the objective of doubling our 2004 passes in science and mathematics by 2008.

Chairperson, we’ve not given up on our plan to ensure that at least by 2010 all high schools in our country should offer science and mathematics taught by qualified, competent teachers. We’re also acting on our planned use of qualified, unemployed teachers of these important subjects. [Interjections.] I have a cold, I was not toyi-toying. [Laughter]. We’ll fill vacant posts in these subjects and we will also relieve teachers who need retraining or further professional development to increase their competence in their subjects.

The new bursary programme for teacher trainees, Fundza Lushaka, is a welcome addition to our strategies. It has attracted over 3 000 future teachers of science, mathematics, technology and languages. I believe that our teaching support and development programme, our new assessment tools, the employment of new freshly qualified teachers and the employment of teachers from foreign lands who are keen to work in our country in these critical subjects will provide the foundations for a better system of education in South Africa.

This belief has led us to critically assess a range of our programmes, including our literacy and adult basic education programmes. Following a comprehensive review of literacy programmes by a ministerial committee, we have developed a refreshed literacy campaign and strategy. This plan will be implemented as a pilot in 2008.

We have also agreed that there should be a rethinking and reconceptualisation of adult basic education and training in South Africa. The curriculum and approach we’ve used thus far has been closely aligned to formal schooling programmes. We plan to offer adults a curriculum that integrates, responds to and reflects their interests, needs and experiences. More attention will also be given to vocational offerings, life skills programmes and possible links with industry and other employers. A green paper on the proposed policy will be published in 2008.

Hon members, our teachers and officials are grappling with complex and challenging tasks. Key among them has been introducing the new national curriculum into our schools. In 2005 we introduced the National Curriculum Statement in Grade 10. In 2008 all learners will be studying the same national curriculum. This is a historic achievement for South Africa; a real achievement for democratic South Africa. [Applause]

Many negative stories have been written about our curriculum change. These stories failed to acknowledge the work done by many provinces, by districts, by school leaders and by many hard-working teachers. Efforts have been made to provide support to our teachers and there have been problems, as we have stated before. Workshops and electronic communication programmes have been mounted, the education portal has been set up, and all of these have provided us with up-to-date information on the curriculum.

If these provisions have not reached you in the education sector, I have to ask, why? When there were so many workshops in your province, why were you not there? When there was a workshop in your school, why were you not there? When there was a workshop in the neighbouring university, why were you not there? Why blame government when you have not utilised opportunities? When the professionals, in professional bodies, are offered development opportunities, they have to independently take up these opportunities. We cannot compel, imprison or bind you to that.

There have been failures in some of our implementation arrangements. We need many more curriculum experts in the system. We need to intensify, expand and increase the training opportunities, but much has been done. Further resource input must be given to schools; materials must be developed to support teachers better; and we also need to plan our training programmes in a more effective way. We have, of course, as the department, improved in many of these areas on better assessment tools, easier exemplars for teachers to work from as well as in areas of support that assist teachers with classroom practice.

We have gone further. We have developed a curriculum package for high school learners and greater support will be provided from this year to teachers and Grade 11 students. Our Grade 11 students, nationally, will write common exams in key subjects this year as part of preparation for the new National Senior Certificate examination in 2008. The provincial teams and our further education branch must be congratulated on their efforts in this regard.

However, all of us were disturbed when we saw so many thousands of Grade 11 children failing the old curriculum in 2006. We anticipated these discussions, but we did not plan proactively and efficiently as a sector. We had agreed, as the council, to plan but we found ourselves reacting under pressure this year rather than on the basis of a fully resourced and well-crafted plan.

Part of the difficulty related to the inadequacies of our current institutional framework. There aren’t many alternatives open to young children beyond school and therefore we need to create more such opportunities. We do not have a diversity of institutions that offer second chances to young adults in our country. We must create these.

We also have not used the Grade 9 exit opportunities in a systematic and co- ordinated manner. We require better monitoring of learners; improved careers and training opportunity advice for young people; closer links between FET colleges and schools; and the adequate development of a summative evaluation certificate at the end of the general education phase. We will be working on these areas.

We are planning better for Grade 12s who do not pass in 2007. Our plans will be conveyed to schools by the beginning of the fourth term. Of course, I have never encouraged learners to plan to fail and I believe what we should be doing is to encourage learners to work for success because that is the best outcome.

We continue with our efforts to develop focused schools and to introduce new subjects to schools that have been denied arts, music, theatre and technological subjects in the past. As all members know, a curriculum is far more than subjects or learning fields. It is the building block for social cohesion and a new set of values and attitudes.

Our curriculum contents reflect these imperatives, but it is clear we are not yet teaching nonviolence, conflict management and respect for all in our schools. We’ll work closely with teachers and learners to build safe and caring schools, to promote nonsexism and respect for diversity, including multilingualism and the development of schools that promote and practice inclusion.

The Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition has correctly identified the important contribution education can and must make to improving skills in South Africa. We have identified universities, universities of technology and FET colleges as the key to our skills response.

Our government has made a significant investment in the college sector. Over R1,8 billion has been invested, and 25 000 students have registered in new exciting FET programmes. We have also provided R600 million for bursaries directly to students attending our FET colleges. Our National Student Financial Aid Scheme is monitoring and administering these bursaries.

We have also, at the university level, provided over R2 billion in new funds to support universities in improving infrastructure, strengthening student support services, formulating academic development programmes and refurbishing our residences, library facilities and ICT resource centres. I urge all members to visit the University of Venda today and then visit it in 12 months’ time. You will see a very different University of Venda, owing to the investment that government is making. [Applause.]

The injection of these funds means that universities can begin to build a new cohort of scholars in South Africa. We also hope that the funding will assist in creating space for vice chancellors to lead a process of intellectual renewal in South Africa.

Beyond schools, skills development, knowledge production and innovation, there are many other matters we must attend to. We have discussed, for example, the issue of non-educator support in our schools. We intend, from next year, that every school in our country should have a minimum number of support staff. No more should there be a situation that, because it is a school in a township, there is no secretary and clerk. We will have this from 2008. [Applause.]

We are also re-examining the position with respect to post allocation and drawing up a much more redress-oriented model of post provision for our schools. We want to appoint more teachers and thus have smaller ratios to schools that are in challenged conditions. You cannot justify having the same teacher-learner ratio for schools that have millions of rands to appoint SGB posts as schools that have very little funding or nothing at all. Some of the inadequacies result from a shortage of classrooms or poor allocation of teaching time. We would like to see full utilisation of all teachers and adequate teacher support for all schools.

We’ll also act on our plan to create a new education evaluation and development unit to support our quality evaluation instruments. I was pleased this year to declare the policy on teacher development. However, we should not take five more years to develop the development programmes. We have allocated over R10 million this year for the planning process of the framework, and have assigned the SA Council for Educators to do the preparatory work with the support of an education task team.

Finally, a great deal of careless debate on the future shape of provinces has occupied the pages of the media recently. The call for a closer examination and review of the financial and structural arrangements that exist in our concurrent constitutional design has been defined by some as a grasp for power by me. I dispute such a conclusion. I believe it is necessary to review systems and the degree to which they reflect original and stated policy intentions.

The fact that collaboration exists in the present form of comradely discussion does call for reflection. It calls for reflection, not for less power to provinces but, potentially, for the development of new forms of collaboration that will lead to improved delivery. That is all, I believe, we need to address.

The matter of learning and teaching support material is a case in point. Millions are spent on learner support material. In fact, last year provinces spent R7,9 billion of the R8 billion adjusted budget on goods and services. Yet, many schoolchildren did not get textbooks. Would a joint collaboration across provinces give rise to more efficient and learner- oriented outcomes? I do not have an answer as yet, but it is a matter that requires our attention. No Parliament, no executive member or government can refuse to examine a policy issue - that is why we are in place.

A further issue is the review of the role and status of school governing bodies. There have been calls for improved support and development of SGBs. I support these calls. However, I think we need a more reflective look at the potential for positive change that lies in school governing bodies. How can we harness this latent energy? One of the possibilities, maybe, is to create district-level councils that have statutory responsibility for areas such as school refurbishment, academic review and assessment or basic resource provision. Developing such a layer of school governance could match skills and abilities across schools and communities, and create the basis for partnership and development beyond individual schools’ interest.

We have been giving attention to the issue of rewards for positive performance. Some have said recognition of excellence is an elitist notion because they view schools in disadvantaged communities in deficit terms. I am proposing that schools which are underresourced but which perform well despite our lack of support to them should be recognised and rewarded, and not be doomed to long-term neglect and underdevelopment because we think to reward is elitist.

Why is it elitist to build a laboratory for a village school that has had three or more years of outstanding performance in science? Why would it be wrong, Chairperson, to reward such a school with such a resource? Why would it be elitist to reward teachers who are doing well in such schools? What is wrong in affirming excellence? Why should mediocrity be more deserving than outstanding performance? I cannot understand our attitude in this regard.

Our tasks are varied. We intend to approach each of them with care and attention. I think we have begun to see exciting signs of extremely positive progress in all the provinces, and our MECs will address these. I am proud to work with such a capable team of members of executive councils. [Applause.]

I conclude by thanking the director-general, his team of deputy directors- general and our officials, our Deputy Minister, all my Cabinet colleagues who have supported education and all stakeholders who make a difference in education. I also thank hon members in the select committee and the Budget Committee for the work they do in our support.

To all these stakeholders I present my homily: We are not wrong in our belief that it is possible to make quality education for all a reality for all learners and teachers in South Africa. Focus, dedication, commitment and hard work will ensure that we make it happen. Thank you. [Applause.] The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: Thank you, hon Minister. I hope you got your time to teach. [Interjections.] Some of the people do not know your other name. This “Grace” is only given to you; and other people will never get that “Grace”. The next speaker is hon B J Tolo. [Interjections.]

Ufuna ukuthini uShiceka? Awume kancane baba uTolo. [What does the hon Shiceka want to say? Wait a minute, hon Tolo.]

Are you rising on a point of order?

Mr S SHICEKA: Yes, Chairperson, I am rising on a point of order. This is the first time that when I speak I start by being apologetic; I do not normally do that. I am not sure if the Rules allow this, but could the speech of the Minister be distributed to all members. I am saying this because it was a good speech. I thank you. [Laughter.]

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: That is not a point of order. You have misused your point of order time. The speech of the Minister will be circulated, and it is also available in Hansard. I am sure it is on the website as well; you can find it there.

Mr B J TOLO: Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Deputy Minister, MECs present here this afternoon and hon members, ours is a country that has enjoyed freedom for the past 13 years. In that period of time we have come to realise that education is a bedrock on which we can and must build a stable and prosperous country. It is for this reason that, as a people, we need to join hands and work together for the education project to succeed. The Department of Education and the Ministry are hard at work to realise this noble goal, but the road ahead is not strewn with roses.

Education laws and policies are in place and flawless in many instances, but the challenge lies in the implementation and monitoring, especially by provinces. As a country, we have gone a long way in making education accessible to young people. The number of children attending school has increased phenomenally. Our tertiary institutions are today overflowing with learners who would not have dreamt of going to a tertiary institution in the past. In this respect, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme has worked wonders.

However, Chair, our biggest challenge is that the quality of our results, especially in matric, has not met our expectations. While the number of learners who pass matric has increased, we cannot say the same about those who pass with endorsements. A cursory look at our results in the past three years shows that we have not even reached the 20% mark as regards those who get endorsements. In 2004 we had 18%, in 2005 it was 17%, and in 2006 it was 16% of those who wrote matric who got endorsements. This is a serious indicator to us that something needs to be done if we are to improve on quality. Chair, something needs to be done, not only in matric but also in all other phases of our education system, because if the foundation is not good one cannot expect miracles in Grade 12. In the same vein, I must say that I skimmed through the department’s framework for the national strategy for learner attainment, NSLA. It is my view that, if implemented, this strategy may be a panacea to all our problems in education but if not, it will not be worth the paper it is written on.

While we, in no uncertain terms, support the R16 billion budget for the Department of Education nationally, we must, however, point out some of the problems we come across as public representatives when we do our committee and constituency work. We do this in order to sensitise both the national departments and the provinces about the gaps that exist in the implementation of laws and policies.

In 2005 this House approved new amendments to the South African Schools Act. Among other things, those amendments compel schools to help parents to apply for exemptions from school fees; and also provide that the school has to, before agreeing on the amount of school fees to be paid, make available the financial statements of the previous year for parents to scrutinise. These and other provisions of the law are unknown – I want to repeat: They are unknown - to many of our schools out there.

Our expectations are that every school needs to have a copy of the basic law that governs schools and if there are amendments, they need to have those as well so that they can be in a position to implement them. This calls into question whether our district or circuit managers are tracking the laws that we pass as Parliament concerning education, with the purpose of helping our schools to implement them.

The National Curriculum Statement is a very important tool of education in South Africa that is meant to imbue all learners with new and progressive values, which have nothing in common with apartheid values. In implementing this new system we are hitting the ground running and therefore those who are at the cutting edge of implementation - the teachers – must not have the feeling that they are being thrown into the deep end. They need to bubble with confidence, if they are to succeed in implementing this new project. The reality is that the opposite is the truth, due to a great shortage of curriculum implementers in our provinces.

Chairperson, to illustrate this fact, in the Eastern Cape, for instance, there is a shortage of about 536 curriculum implementers, six of those positions are for chief education specialists, 224 are for deputy chief education specialists, and 306 are for senior education specialists. This information comes from the curriculum directorate in the province. But I want to say I respect the Eastern Cape, because, at least, they know the magnitude of the problem. The other provinces from whom we wanted this information could not give it to us. It, therefore, means to us that they do not know the magnitude of the problem. How do they address the problem if they do not know how big it is? That is a worrying factor.

Chair, our schools are under siege. They are annexed and occupied by drug lords who see a drug market in our children. We need a concerted effort from all of us, including parents, to reclaim our schools. Failure to do this will lead to us losing a whole generation of young people, and that is a luxury that we cannot afford as a nation. We call upon these schools and other schools governing bodies who have not yet adopted a policy of adopting a cop to do so as quickly as possible. We also want to call upon Members of Parliament here to adopt schools in the areas where they live, so that they can be in a position to help them to achieve better and to stabilise.

We have said in the past, and we are repeating it today, that hitherto adult basic education and training has always been a Cinderella of all education programmes. In our engagement with the department, we were pleased to learn that Abet and other mass literacy programmes will be prioritised in this financial year. We hope that that will lead to stabilisation in the Abet sector, even for Abet teachers. Today an Abet teacher cannot buy anything on hire purchase, because they are not fully employed.

The Dinaledi schools are a proper response by the education department to address the problem of skills shortages in our economy. We appreciate the fact that these are being increased every year. The challenge, however, is whether these schools are getting enough support from the provinces. There is a view that these schools should be put under the national Department of Education for proper resourcing and maintenance of some standards throughout the whole country. This view is not very unreasonable, and it should be properly scrutinised, if a decision has to be taken.

In the same vein, the recapitalisation of FET colleges will inevitably contribute to the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa. Many out there have not yet realised the important role that FETs can play in the provision of much-needed skills in our country. There is a perception that FETs are meant for those who cannot make it in matric or for those who do not get endorsement in Grade 12. We must dispel this myth by encouraging as many learners as possible to enrol for FET training. In some cases, some of our best brains from Grade 12 must also be encouraged to go into FET colleges.

The initiative by the Department of Education to build partnership among FETs, business and universities is to be welcomed, for it is only when stakeholders in the field of skills development work together that we can win the war against skills shortages in our country. Chair, for many years we have been labouring under the impression that good teachers will make good principals or school managers. Experience has taught us that this is a fallacy. To this end, we commend the Department of Education for introducing a course that will equip principals to become effective professional leaders in their schools. We do know that some provinces like Free State and Mpumalanga have programmes where they take some underperforming principals and put them under the mentorship of performing principals so that they can actually learn basic management of schools. We know that there has been some resistance in some areas, but it cannot be stopped.

We commend the Department of Education for increasing funding for institutions of higher learning. We agree with the Minister that, with this funding, there will be no need for these institutions to increase their tuition fees as this puts a lot of strain on parents and financial aid schemes.

The problem of transformation in some universities is still far from resolved. Hon Van Rooyen who is sitting here today and who is a member of this House has told me, for instance, that at the University of the Free State more than 82% of the top management are still white Afrikaner males. He has said no-go areas still exist on the campus, regarding black students and that there are still areas where the Vierkleur [four-colour flag] - that is the old South African flag - is still the order of the day. We are saying, if this is the case, then we need some external intervention.

There are many more issues that we want to speak about, but my colleagues will do that later. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

Mr O M THETJENG: Chairperson and colleagues, I hope you will allow my time to run very slowly so that I can say much more today. Minister, let me start by saying that this debate is taking place when the majority of public servants are on an indefinite strike. You have just alluded to that and this includes the teachers.

My two children, Tebogo and Karabo, who are attending Pietersburg English Medium School are still in Grade 4 and 2 respectively and are without teachers in Polokwane. They do not understand why they are not being taught. I believe that this strike could have been avoided and I believe that perhaps all the stakeholders are negotiating in good faith. Both the employer and employees should actually put the interest of the country high on the agenda. I hope a speedy resolution will be reached sooner rather than later and as you have alluded to this, Minister, I hope it will actually happen.

This debate is taking place just after the Minister has delivered her most forthright Budget Vote in the National Assembly, the lower House. The DA welcomes some of the telling blows delivered in that budget speech. It only helps our country to have Ministers are not willing to buy anyone’s favour, but who do their job with aplomb. I want to quote some of the good things you said, Minister, in the “lower” House:

We tolerate public officials who are not up to the task of administrative and professional support, who leave work early, who fail to pay subsidies to schools on time and who do not yet reflect the objectives and principles of Batho Pele - people first.

This doesn’t happen in Limpopo. Minister, in some instances employment equity is to blame because competent people have been ignored for critical positions such as management. If a line functionary fails to do his or her duties, then it goes without saying that the person must be relieved of their responsibilities and those who are capable and willing to serve the nation should be employed. Let us reduce our tolerance level to zero so as to deal with this scourge of incompetence and laziness.

The Public Service Commission has just released a report in which it shows that our Public Service is not performing in line with the Batho Pele principles. We need to make sure that that report is taken seriously.

Mediocrity, coming late, little or no teaching, poor academic success and constant underperformance are some of the issues you lamented, and they cannot be accepted if South Africa is to compete equally with the rest of the world. I hope the MECs of education in the provinces listened to your speech with much appreciation so that they can start to deal with some of the concerns that you raised, which are also my concerns. I want to express my appreciation and welcome Kwazulu-Natal here today, in this Budget Vote discussion, because last year I didn’t see them.

The DA wants to put this proposal to your office: Principals must have a contract for a particular period in which their performance is assessed and reviewed. If they perform, they are provided with performance bonuses and their contracts are extended. If they are underperforming, they are demoted back to being an ordinary teacher. If this is not done, all of us will keep on lamenting without a solution in sight.

In one primary school in Limpopo, a principal withheld promotional reports of learners because their parents owed fees. I visited the families concerned to establish the authenticity of the story and guess what I found: I found learners from poor families who could not proceed to Grade 8 in a secondary school in tears, not knowing what to do. I contacted the MEC of education, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, who is here with us today, who promised to investigate and deal with the matter. I am happy to report that all those learners are today at school, after our intervention with the MEC. But how many cases of this kind exist that have not come to our attention? This is just one example of a principal underperforming and not being willing to implement policy and ignoring Batho Pele principles.

In the February Noseweek, issue 88, we read how officials in the Eastern Cape education department were milking the feeding scheme. The new MEC is here and we hope that he will deal with the situation that has prevailed in that particular province. The question that remains is: Who and how many were involved in the scheme? Has the department investigated the matter, because conditional grants are affected? Well, the common suspects in major corruption cases are mentioned in the report. I won’t dwell on that.

Most schools in Limpopo are collapsing because they were built by communities in the past, without assistance from the state. It is reported that 2 700 schools are needed in the province. The MEC of education in the province indicated to me that they are trying their best to solve the problem by putting up decent temporary classrooms. I believe other provinces should follow suit as well. We don’t need children learning under trees.

We all know that Limpopo is one of the provinces that had too many administrations and that means a lot of segregation occurred there. Services were compartmentalised according to the homeland that they belonged to. No wonder that six of the 11 official languages emanate from Limpopo. Gauteng, being our subregion, just adds one more language – Tswana

• to make them seven. [Laughter.] The DA is also concerned about the high levels of pregnancy at schools where there are no properly trained teachers or professionals to handle the situation. I recently read the Sunday Times, dated 29 May 2007, which reported that a school in the Eastern Cape had 144 learners that were pregnant. The report revealed what I had suspected were the reasons for such a situation to develop: poverty, poor school discipline and gender violence.

It was reported in the same article that learners were falling pregnant because they wanted to receive child grants. They then ended up realising that the money was not sufficient for the needs of their own children.

The other concern for the DA is violence within schools. Thank goodness, the MEC for education in the Western Cape is here with us today - and he will speak after me - to tell us what he is doing about the situation that developed last week where it is alleged that one learner was stabbed with a pair of scissors. So, safety at schools is really degenerating, and we want to know, Minister, what it is that is being done to deal with this particular matter. Fortunately, it hasn’t happened in our province of Limpopo. In KwaZulu-Natal a lady teacher was shot dead in the school yard. In the Western Cape it is the learner that I have spoken about and I am saying that safety at schools must be improved.

The no-fee schools are commended though there are problems. The number of quintiles has increased and more learners are going to be covered. But, I want to reiterate and I hope I will be given more time: The system where schools in the same ward are given the same quintile is wrong, because some suburbs are combined with their own townships and they fall in the same ward. Therefore, you cannot put a model C school and a previously disadvantaged school in the same quintile. I hope this situation will be dealt with. I had discussions with our MEC who promised that this would be done.

Chairperson, the one-size-fits-all kind of approach cannot work. I hope you will give me five more minutes to deal with outstanding issues. I am pleading with you.

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: Your time has expired. I told you that the grace was only for Grace and not for other people.

Mr C M DUGMORE (Western Cape): Chairperson, Minister Pandor, Deputy Minister Surty, all our MECs and hon members of the House, I am not sure whether the previous speaker shook my hand for any specific reason. I always find it strange when coming to this particular House, that very often, the speakers who represent the DA fail to actually come to this House with very concrete and firm alternative proposals. They come into this House, selectively quote from our Minister’s speech and then imply that nothing positive is happening in the schools of this country. I think if anyone was there in the National Assembly and listened to what our Minister said in terms of actually dealing with issues of mediocrity, one would have heard that our Minister reported very clearly on progress which is being made in our schools and teachers who are going the extra mile. But it is these things that the DA refuses to see and refuses to take note of.

I think it is very clear that we need to be very honest in terms of our reflections on what is happening in our schools and also to recognise those positive contributions which our teachers are making across the board. At the same time, we, in the Western Cape, firmly support the view that we cannot tolerate the situation where particular officials in our department, and who are serving our schools, do not focus on the work that they are supposed to do. In that context, we need to deal with those officials and to take very firm steps. At the same time, we need to acknowledge that there are many of our officials and teachers across the board who are working hard and helping our schools to get on track. It is these contributions that we need to acknowledge.

I really want to commend the Minister for the speech that she has made and also for the guidance which she has provided to our provinces. Tomorrow, in our legislature, I will submit our Western Cape education budget in which, in detail, we will outline the measures in terms of how we propose to support the call made in our Minister’s speech last year that we need to focus very firmly on dealing with programmes to develop quality education in all of our schools.

It is very clear that the education system of our country needs to focus on promoting equity, expanding access and also making sure that we have redress across the board. We have to provide knowledge and skills, and by so doing we need to assist in the fight against poverty and unemployment. We need to produce scientists, inventors, technologists and creative talent to keep us, as a country, viable in the face of global challenges. This is the excellence and quality which we seek.

We often look to our national leadership for guidance in determining priorities, setting standards of excellence and in regard to policy. We are very grateful for the direction given by the national department regarding the interventions, particularly the Quality Improvement, Development, Support and Upliftment Programme, Qids-Up. This particular initiative which has been driven at national level has helped us to be strategic, to be analytical about our most needy schools and, in fact, to align our funding and focus on schools in the poorest quintiles.

The multifaceted Qids-Up approach is a useful model because it looks holistically at a variety of elements in the learning environment at those schools. In our province, Qids-Up - the dedicated fund that has been secured by our Minister in this regard - is focusing, for the first time, on providing libraries to schools that have never had libraries before; providing teacher development in our schools; utilising those funds to assist our teachers in terms of advanced certificates in education; and also making major improvements with regard to the infrastructure in those schools.

Qids-Up is one of the programmes in our province which we see contributing directly to boosting quality in our schools. The no-fee schools project represents a key strategic intervention and is also beginning to bear fruit in our province. Because only 14,5% of the learners in our province were allocated to the poorest quintiles, that is quintile 1 and 2, what we have done as a province is to offer our quintile 3 schools, on a voluntary basis, the opportunity to accept no-fee school status - which they have done. We now have a situation where over 37% of the learners in our province are in no-fee schools.

One of the important points to make is that we need to make sure that those of our schools that are charging fees have a clear policy in place to inform parents of their rights to apply for full or partial exemption. One of the problems which we face is that many of our parents are not aware of this; and we have a situation where our schools do not take active steps to inform them of their rights in this regard.

Some of our schools are then placed in a situation where they, in fact, begin to put pressure on our parents who, in situations like that, cannot afford to pay fees. This is something which we are monitoring in our province, to make sure that fees are not used by some of our former model C schools to exclude parents who cannot pay the fees. This means ongoing focus and monitoring.

I also want to say that the emphasis from the national Minister, in terms of FET college recapitalisation, is also contributing in very concrete ways to developing our provincial growth and development strategy in our province and actually to strengthen the six colleges in the Western Cape. In our province, we have seen that the allocation to the FET sector has increased by over 17,5% and that the nationally driven courses are now a reality in each one of colleges in our province. We have found that we have full take-up across the province, regarding these courses.

Our commitment at the national level to expanding the early childhood development strategy is something which is beginning to have an impact across our province. Today, I want to appeal that one of the key issues we need to focus on is a clear timeframe regarding employing our Grade R teachers and formally making them part of the educational establishments at all of our schools. As a province, we are moving increasingly away from supporting ECD sites to make sure that our schools are given extra provisions for infrastructure, to make sure that Grade R, in particular, happens and that we support them at that level.

Hon Minister, we in the Western Cape want to welcome the pending mass literacy campaign which you have announced. We believe that, in the context of many of our initiatives around adult basic education, and also in the context of some of our projects which have been initiated, which focus on mass literacy, this national campaign is going to actively support our initiatives to ensure that we focus on literacy amongst all the people in our province who cannot read and write yet. We believe that this will be a major assistance and boost to the campaigns in our province.

I believe that the combination of early childhood development as well as the mass literacy campaign aimed at our parents will contribute to assisting in building quality education at all levels within our province. We believe that families’ literacy is also critical in terms of improving basic literacy and numeracy levels, which are critical, especially in the foundation phase.

The contribution which we have made in the Western Cape, with regard to numeracy and literacy, is to pilot a Teaching Assistant Project through which we have deployed over 510 teaching assistants to 163 schools. We are working to make sure that the training that they are receiving at our FET colleges is accredited.

One of the most exciting things about this project is the fact that many of these teaching assistants who now find themselves supporting our educators in the classroom have now approached our department for assistance, in terms of actually becoming teachers and choosing that as a career path.

Our programme of testing on a provincial level has given us clear indications that we are making strides, particularly on literacy. But, clearly, what is required is to redouble our efforts, especially regarding numeracy in the foundation phase.

It is true that our province faces major challenges regarding safety. We find that the social pathologies in many of our communities impact on our schools. It is clear to us that the measures in the Education Laws Amendment Bill, which are going to give particular powers to our schools in regard to testing for illegal substances and also to search for dangerous weapons, are part of the initiatives which are going to assist us in the province.

Unless we are able to build partnerships with community police forums to get the active involvement of our parents and to have an initiative where we relook at the codes of conduct in our schools and get buy-in and support for them, we are not going to deal with the challenges that we face. I thank you very much. [Applause.]

Mr G A LUCAS (Northern Cape): Madam Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, hon Minister and hon Deputy Minister, colleagues, MECs from provinces and hon members of the House, let me state from the outset that it is always an honour and a privilege to participate in policy debates of this House, as they afford us the opportunity to communicate to the rest of the nation the work and progress we are making as provinces in advancing the collective agenda of providing quality education to all our people. This platform gives us an opportunity to communicate the necessary tools that we are implementing to ensure that education across the system is delivered in a qualitative way.

We all know that education is among those areas of concurrent functions that require the participation of provinces and national government in the provision of quality education. I’m sure it will only be those who are naive and selective who will not want us to review the capacity of our state to deliver quality service to our people. It’s very important that all of us engage in this discussion in a sober, appropriate and mature manner in order to ensure that, at the end of the day, what is desirable and achievable is achieved, and not pursue political interest ourselves as those who proclaim that the discussion on the developmental state is focused on particular interests.

We have, as a province, within the spirit of co-operative governance, ensured that all our provincial plans are in line with the national priorities of the education sector and that our budget adequately addresses this national interest. Amongst the key priorities catered for in this financial year is the implementation of Qids-Up, a programme which my colleague has spoken about. What we would be attending to as an immediate task is to ensure that we appropriately resource all our primary schools with basic requirements in order for them to be able to fulfil their responsibilities.

We will be providing the necessary learning materials, in particular the creation of classroom reading resource centres or reading resource corners, which will have 100 fiction books in each classroom, and we will also provide our schools with other age-appropriate reading, mathematics and science materials. We are doing this because it is necessary to ensure that Qids-Up succeeds and, in that context, ensure that our schools succeed. We would also be ensuring during this financial year that each learner in the FET band has a minimum of seven textbooks as a further mechanism of giving the necessary impetus to Qids-Up.

In addition to this, as a province, we are about to finalise our learner tracking system. This innovative mechanism of the province will make it possible to have an electronic information system that captures all the information relating to learners in our education system. Therefore, it is going to be possible to track where these learners are, their social conditions, what impedes their ability to be able to succeed and the kind of interventions we as a government must make to ensure that our children succeed.

This learner tracking system will be able to monitor a child from Grade R to Grade 12. Therefore, we will be able to know where that child reported for school and whether that child has been able to exit the system. We will be able to track if the child is not in the system and we will be able to know where that child is.

These are the kinds of innovations that come from provinces to ensure that we are able to succeed as a nation and not sit idle and worry about the kind of developmental state we want to have, because our people want delivery and that is what we need to do, Madam Chair.

We are also striving to do all these things with the explicit intention of raising learner achievement. To this extent, we have adopted our strategy to raise learner achievement across the system. Our belief is that all learners are equal and that each can achieve. We must thus be able to do everything necessary to provide the resources and support in order to make sure that our children succeed. We have made it our responsibility to create conducive conditions for all our schools to offer and deliver quality education to all our children irrespective of their socioeconomic status in our society.

The other programme on which we are beginning to make real progress is in the area of school building infrastructure that the Minister has alluded to. We are already moving away from only building classrooms, ablution facilities and administration blocks and then believing that we have built a well-equipped school.

This year, regarding our two new schools that we are going to build, we are going to ensure that they encompass all the facilities that make an ideal school functional, with a library, media centre, science laboratory and computer centre. [Applause.] This, we are doing because we want our schools to be schools and centres of learning and also of community life, and not facilities with only physical infrastructure but nothing exciting to encourage our learners to strive to learn better.

In the past financial year we started off with our flagship programme whereby communities assisted us with the building of additional classrooms at 20 of our schools. This year we will further extend this venture, which not only contributes to job creation but also helps with skills development, because FET colleges help us to skill these community members to be able to build our schools.

This is our intervention in the second economy and we are hopeful that as we roll it out, we will be able to share the expertise of other colleagues and other provinces on how this venture of the community building schools and ensuring that communities take ownership of the schools is assisting in job creation and poverty eradication.

Furthermore, our school nutrition programme thus far has created 1 400 jobs for women across the province. We feed for 174 days, which is above the national norm. [Applause.] What this confirms is that if we manage our feeding programme strictly, as a poverty intervention mechanism, and therefore use the communities to feed our children, we can do more with the resources allocated to us and be able to empower our communities. But, more importantly, we are able to give our children nutritional meals each day.

What we are striving for is to make sure that we are able to achieve the target of ensuring that we are able to feed our children for 200 days in each academic year. I am sure we can move collectively with the national department towards achieving this particular objective.

Our only area of concern is the fact that our conditional grant allocations thus far do not take into account the new demarcated areas of Kgalagadi and Pampierstad, but we are still able to make sure that we feed our children for 174 days a year.

An issue that my colleague raised concerning the challenge of the no-fee- paying schools will receive greater attention and support during this financial year. In essence, we are looking at what other barriers or constraints exist in some of the schools which prevent the poor from realising the objective of receiving quality education.

One of the areas that we have given attention to is to look at our urban and rural nodes. Is it not time that we declare all those schools in those particular nodes no-fee-paying schools? Such a step will ensure that, as government, we intervene in a collective and integrated manner in the areas that we have defined as pockets of absolute poverty and will ensure that those children in those communities are able to receive quality education. In this context, we are looking at the intervention that we can make in Kgalagadi to make sure that children in our schools in Kgalagadi district – a newly incorporated rural node – are able to receive quality education.

I am informed that in Kgalagadi there are learners who travel more than 10 km each day to school. This means that when those children arrive at school they are already tired. The weather conditions of the Northern Cape are extreme: when it is cold it is extremely cold and when it is hot it is extremely hot. These children have to travel every day for 200 days on foot – most of them on bare feet – to some of these far-flung schools. This means that our learner transport system is not working effectively.

We are working very hard to ensure that we are able to achieve these particular objectives. We believe that these interventions will help us to succeed as a nation.

In conclusion, let me also indicate that we all know that South Africa has been short-listed as a possible site to host the Square Kilometre Array and that the Northern Cape has been identified as the likely host of this SKA in South Africa. The implication of this is that if South Africa wins the right to host the SKA, we will become a major global player in the field of space technology and space science.

What that means is that we will need astronomers, scientists and engineers. It is in this context that we are working together with the Department of Science and Technology and other social partners to ensure that our Dinaledi schools succeed. To this end, we have made real investments in our schools. Thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]

Ms N M MADLALA-MAGUBANE: Sihlalo, ngibingelela uNgqongqoshe woMnyango Wezemfundo, iPhini lakhe, oNgqongoqoshe bezifundazwe ngokwahlukana kwazo, nabahlonishwa. [Chairperson, I greet the Minister of the Department of Education, her Deputy, MECs from different provinces and hon members.]

We are aware that one of the department’s goals is to increase access to quality early childhood development. Minister, such ECD work is only visible at former model C schools and not in the previously disadvantaged schools. There are very few centres and they are not properly structured, are underresourced and have untrained teachers. We therefore urge the department to speed up the establishment of ECD centres. We are aware that the department expects to meet its target by 2010.

Coming to safety at schools, some of our schools are completely unsafe, these days. Pupils of 13 years of age carry knives and guns at schools. In some schools there is drug abuse and things of this kind are happening there, and the community itself is not involved in schools. Parents themselves are not responsible enough for their kids, and members of the community are manufacturing and selling drugs to our pupils. There is no longer that consciousness among our community itself.

Lafa elihle kakhulu, lapho kwakuthiwa khona ingane yakho ingane yami! Ngqongqoshe, mangisho ukuthi kubalulekile ukuthi siqinise umkhankaso obizwa ngokuthi i-Adopt-a-Cop ngani ngoba nginesiqiniseko sokuthi izelelesi ezifana nalezi zizoncipha kakhulu. Kanjalo masibe nomkhankaso futhi sibambisene nawo umphakathi wakuleli. Mangize ezinganeni zamantombazane ezikhulelwa esikoleni. Ziyakhulelwa ngisho zineminyaka eyi-14. Umbuzo okumele sizibuze wona ukuthi: Ubani okhulelisa lezi zingane? Ngabe abafana besikole noma amadoda athanda izingane ezincane? Okwesibili, ngabe umkhankaso wamajazi omkhwenyana awufinyeleli yini ezindlebeni zabo? Okokugcina, njengalokhu lezi zingane zizincane kangaka, ngabe zithonjiswa ngabesilisa yini? Kwenzekani ngempela ezweni lakithi?

Ngqongqoshe, siyakuthakasela esikufunda emaphepheni okuhlongozayo, noma-ke singazikholwa izinto esizifunda emaphepheni. Kodwa manje inkinga ukuthi ngabe yizingane zamantombazane kuphela ezithola isijeziso noma bajeziswa bobabili nomfana? Ngikhuluma mayelana nokuthi ingane yentombazane izohlala ekhaya iminyaka emibili uma kade ikhulelwe. Kule minyaka emibili ngabe kuzokwenzekani kulo mntwana wentombazane? Asibhekisise ukuthi yini engase ivelele ingane yentombazane. Okunye, kungani yona ingane yomfana ingahlali iminyaka emibili ekhaya ingafundi? (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)

[Gone are the good old days when every parent was referred to as a parent to every child! Hon Minister, let me say that, it is important to intensify the Adopt-a-Cop campaign because I believe that criminals like these will be diminished greatly. Let us also involve the community in this campaign.

Let me focus on the issue of girls who become pregnant whilst still at school. They become pregnant even at the age of 14. The question that we need to ask ourselves is: Who is impregnating these children? Could it be school boys or old men who are abusing small children? Secondly, does the safe sex campaign not reach them? Lastly, do these children - at such a young age - reach puberty through men? What exactly is happening in our country?

Hon Minister, we are happy with what we read in the newspapers about what is intended, even though we do not necessarily believe what we read in newspapers. But now the problem is, who is really being punished here? Is it girls only or both boys and girls? I am talking about the fact that when a girl is pregnant, she will have to stay at home for two years. What will happen to the girl in these two years? Let us look at what might happen to the girl-child. Another thing is, why would the boy not also stay at home for two years like the girl?]

Let us embark on a serious campaign which will involve parents, teachers and the community at large in order for us to curb this problem.

Ngqongqoshe, uma ngiza ekuthuthukisweni kothisha, siyakuthakasela okwenziwa uMnyango wakho ekukhuthazeni izinga lomsebenzi wothisha, ikakhulukazi othishanhloko, kodwa ngikholelwa ukuthi akwanele, ikakhulukazi kothisha abagxile kweze-mathematics nezobuchwepheshe. Ngiyethemba uMnyango wakho uzokwenza ngakho konke okusemandleni ukukhuphula izikole ezibizwa ngeDinaledi schools ukuze phela kugxilwe kabanzi kuzona. UMnyango wezwe lonke mawuzimisele, kungabi yizifundazwe kuphela. Uma ngiza ohlwelweni lokulandelelela indlela okwenzeka ngayo izinto, omunye umhlonishwa waseNyakatho Kapa aphawule ngalo, Ngqongqoshe, siyikomiti elibhekele ezemfundo kwisishayamthetho sikazwelonke sinentshisekelo yokwazi ukuthi uMnyango wakho umaphi ngalolu hlelo lokulandelela? Siyabona inani lezingane eziqala ukungena isikole ebangeni lokuqala - inani lisuke liphezulu; uma zifika ebangeni leshumi, inani lisuke selehlile ngokumangazayo. Akuqondakali ukuthi ezinye zisuke sezishonephi. Kubalulekile ukuthi sibe nolwazi ngalokhu, kanjalo sibe nolwazi nangobulili bazo.

Uma ngiza kubafundi abanezidingo ezihlukile, ngikholelwa ukuthi ngenye ingxenye ebalulekile eMnyangweni wakho. Mangisho ukuthi siyikomidi Elibhekele ezemfundo eMkhandlwini Kazwelonke Wezifundazwe, sesike savakashela eMpumalanga naseMpumalanga Kapa lapho sathola isimo esingagculisi neze. Izingqalasizinda ziyabheda, izikole zithembele ezinhlanganweni ezingekho ngaphansi kukahulumeni ezingasabonwa nangokhalo, othisha abaqeqeshiwe ngokwanele. Uma ngingenza umzekeliso, ulwazi ngezempilo othisha abanalo; abanalo ikhono lokuhlukanisa phakathi kwengane ekhubazekile ngokwengqondo kanye nengane ethatha kancane kwezemfundo. Sibona kunesidingo esiphuthumayo sokuthi uMnyango ubukisise lolu hlobo lwezikole futhi ubambisane noMnyango Wezokuthuthukiswa Komphakathi.

Uma ngiza ekuthuthukisweni kohlelo lwezempilo, ngithi ezempilo zibalulekile kakhulu ezikoleni. Makube khona isikhwama esiphatha izinsiza zempilo kuzo zonke izikole ukuze phela othisha bakwazi ukusiza izingane ngisho zinomhuzukwana ongatheni. Mawuqhubeke uqiniswe umkhankaso kanye nezinhlelo zokulwa neGciwane leNgculazi kanye neNgculazi kuzo zonke izikole, ngokunjalo nabazali mababambisane nothisha kulolu hlelo. Ngiyabonga. [Ihlombe.] (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)

[Hon Minister, when it comes to the development of teachers, we thank your department for uplifting the status of the teaching profession, especially for the principals. But I think that is not enough particularly for the teachers teaching both mathematics and technology. I believe that your department will do everything in its power to increase the Dinaledi schools so as to concentrate on them. The national department should also be engaged, it must not only be the provinces.

When it comes to the follow-up programme, hon Minister, the member from the Northern Cape talked about the fact that, as the Select Committee on Education in the NCOP, we are eager to know the standpoint of your department in this regard. We always see a high number of learners starting school in Grade one, and as they move from grade to grade, the number drops drastically and only a handful of learners make it to Grade 12. It is not clear what happens to the other learners. It is important that we have information about this, and about the gender of learners.

When it comes to learners with special needs - which I believe is one of the most important issues in your department - I must say that as the Select Committee on Education in the NCOP, we visited Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape respectively and we found very unpleasant conditions. The infrastructure is bad, schools depend on NGOs which are nowhere to be found, and teachers are not adequately trained. One example here is that teachers do not have any knowledge of health issues; they do not have the skill to differentiate between a mentally retarded child and a slow learner. We believe there is an urgent need for the department to look into these kinds of schools and it must also work with the Department of Social Welfare.

When it comes to the development of health programmes, I am saying that health issues are very important at schools. There should be first-aid boxes at all schools so that teachers are able to help pupils when they sustain minor injuries like lacerations. The intensification of programmes to fight HIV and Aids must proceed at all schools and parents should co- operate with teachers on this programme. Thank you.[Applause.]]

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF EDUCATION: Hon Deputy Chairperson, hon Minister, hon MECs and hon distinguished members of the House, our democracy is still about dialogue; it is about expressing informed opinions; it is about expressing genuine outrage; it is about changing one’s mind in the light of better arguments; it is about accepting both the joys of victory and the pains of defeat; it is about the rule of law; it is about the difference between right and wrong; it is about orderly, efficient and caring government; it is about rights and responsibilities; it is about the quest for beauty, intelligence, creativity, hope, kindness, humility, co- operation, friendliness, trust, conviction, respect and courtesy in our living environments. I would like to reaffirm our common commitment to a new and better society.

Prof Njabulo Ndebele’s words remind us why we are all here. We are here to serve our people; to make sure that all promises made are kept. His words also resonate well with the pledge we made as government, that of building a better life for all.

In fulfilling this pledge, the Department of Education has committed itself to working with provinces in ensuring that learners from disadvantaged communities receive nutrition, health care and the general, academic, physical and emotional support they need in order to participate actively and to benefit from the education that we provide.

With regard to nutrition, the national school nutrition programme is being successfully implemented in most provinces, with a total of 5 000 996 learners in more than 18 000 schools being provided with meals nationally. There are 7 000 vegetable gardens which have been established in schools to date; 12 assistant directors were deployed across all provinces to support schools with existing gardens and to assist schools in establishing food production projects; and 205 workshops were conducted countrywide on basic gardening skills and rainwater harvesting. Partnerships with other government departments and the private sector enabled access to essential resources such as water tanks and garden implements.

We take heart from the comments made by the MEC from the Northern Cape, when he said that they have expanded the number of days and that, indeed, the Northern Cape has included certain high schools, because it does not make sense that, from the same household, we have one sibling in high school who is not provided with nutrition while the other one is provided with nutrition.

In collaboration with the Financial and Fiscal Commission, the Department of Education is currently assessing the feasibility of extending the national school nutrition programme to include secondary school learners. This will address the concern about siblings from the same household in primary and high schools.

Our challenge still remains in most of our rural schools. According to the Ministerial Committee on Rural Education, the most important characteristic of rural education is poverty. Therefore an integrated approach involving all relevant departments and other stakeholders has to be developed.

The department will be organising a national colloquium on rural education with relevant stakeholders, including the Nelson Mandela Trust, the National House of Traditional Leaders, the business sector and other sister government departments. The colloquium must deal with the linkage between education and rural transformation, a linkage that seeks to underscore the inescapable forces of change that rural and farm communities are faced with, and how education can equip people with appropriate knowledge, skills and information to expand their choices and how it can enable them to exercise these choices effectively - the issue of ICT comes to mind, for instance.

Dr Tolo has correctly expressed concern about Abet. In fact, the “basic” in adult basic education and training gives my hon Minister a degree of unease, because she feels it is rather limiting and that one should talk about adult education and training.

In addition to the elements raised by the hon Minister regarding the review, it would be necessary to ensure that research occurs in terms of where it is that learners are found, so that classes can be offered at times that are suitable to the learners and at an available place other than school classrooms. This would mean that we would have to look at the formal working environment and the informal working environment for this particular purpose. It would also mean that one has to link adult education and training with the skills identified by the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, and the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition in terms of food production, plastering, gardening, building and other skills.

The hon Minister has spoken about the issue of literacy in her budget speech and the intention of the Department of Education to ensure that we expand this very significantly. For the period February to March 2008 we are projecting that 1,2 million learners who are either illiterate or functionally illiterate will be reached. We would like to thank the hon Dr Lewis and his team for doing a wonderful job in developing a new concept towards massification of our literacy campaign.

You may recall that during the 2001 state of the nation address, President Thabo Mbeki directed that the Department of Sport and Recreation, the Department of Arts and Culture and the Department of Education should strive to inculcate the values of our democratic Constitution in our young people. Sport, arts, culture and music are necessary vehicles to attain such an ideal. The department has established a unit called the school enrichment unit to co-ordinate and strengthen the delivery of national extramural and extracurricular school enrichment programmes, not only to promote mass participation in sport by young people but to promote social transformation and cohesion.

Some of the arts, culture and music flagship programmes that our department has co-ordinated in collaboration with the Department of Arts and Culture include the SA Schools Choral Eisteddfod, the national indigenous games, music and movement festival as well as the national language festival concert. You may remember that the national language festival is an idea that emerged from this House, many years ago.

These national programmes involve thousands of young people throughout the country. Through these initiatives, learners are not only given the opportunity to showcase their talents, but also develop love for and appreciation of many forms of music, dance and culture. Importantly, these events provide learners from different provinces with the opportunity to get together and develop an understanding of each other. This helps to build a common South African national identity.

I invite hon members to attend the provincial championships of our Eisteddfod that will be held between June and July; and the national championship which will be held from 2 August 2007 to 5 August 2007 at the Coca Cola dome in Randburg.

The national indigenous games, music and movement festival will be held in East London in September as part of our Heritage Month celebrations. Learners will participate in indigenous games such as debeke, jukskei, kgathi, morabaraba, drie-blikkies, hopscotch and tik-tok, which is a Khoi and San indigenous game. They will also demonstrate a wide variety of indigenous dances and movements and present a varied repertoire of indigenous and traditional music.

On 17 March 2005, the hon Minister of Education as well as the hon Minister of Sport and Recreation signed a framework for collaboration in school sport. The national co-ordinating committee envisaged in the school sport framework has been established, and it has drafted and adopted a 5-year school sport programme for 2007 to 2011.

School sport events such as the national schools’ aquatics, national schools’ athletics, South African schools’ winter games, summer games and cross-country races are part of the 5-year programme co-ordinated by the national co-ordinating committee. It is important to note that the national co-ordinating committee is aiming to integrate the national school sport programme and to make the programme as inclusive as possible.

Our department is co-ordinating extramural and extracurricular school enrichment programmes as a vehicle, not only to strengthen the implementation of the National Curriculum Statements but also to promote moral regeneration and the healthy physical and emotional wellbeing of our learners. This must surely lead to social transformation and cohesion through building a South African nation, grounded in the positive values of our Constitution.

The hon Tolo quite correctly pointed out that we have a particular responsibility to dispel the myth that says FET colleges are inferior. Indeed, the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs and I have visited eight of the nine provinces within a year. Our next meeting will be in the Northern Cape and will take place on 15 June 2007. This is where we will promote dialogue in terms of democracy, the values that underpin our Constitution as well as profile our further education and training colleges as wonderful places for developing occupational and vocational skills.

In the past year we reached more than 30 000 learners and the fact that we are oversubscribed in our new programme is evidence that the message has indeed got through. We also want to assure the members that FET colleges will provide highly sophisticated ICT capacity so that every learner has access to the Internet and would be computer literate in terms of any of the 11 important learning areas that have been introduced.

The journey that we have to travel is a long and arduous one. Perhaps we should end by referring to the MEC of the Northern Cape who spoke about learners in rural areas. It is therefore appropriate to conclude by reflecting on the more than 500 000 learners who journey on foot for more than one hour, daily, to and from school.

To address this urgent need, the national Department of Education and the Department of Transport, together with the provincial departments of education and transport, will meet to consider and develop policy proposals on the provision of alternatives, including bicycles, establishing hostels in sparsely populated rural areas, safety regulations, uniforms, subsidies and a range of other issues incidental to the provision of effective transport to our learners because that, indeed, is a matter that we cannot overlook. My time has now expired. Thank you so much, Deputy Chairperson.

Mrs J N VILAKAZI: Chairperson, hon Ministers, hon MECs, hon members and officials from the Department of Education, the IFP commends some of the key achievements of the Department of Education over the past year, such as the employment and training of teachers, school nutrition, the introduction of no-fee schools and the roll-out of adult education and FET colleges etc. However, the IFP will continue to remind this House of the legacy of the infrastructure backlogs that we are faced with in the KwaZulu-Natal province.

School pupils in KwaZulu-Natal get the smallest per capita expenditure allocated to them each year, despite having the largest school population and the largest infrastructure backlogs in the country. KwaZulu-Natal’s education budget allocation is simply not enough, since KwaZulu-Natal, with its 6 000 schools, has the biggest school population in the country.

Parents in areas such as Empangeni town have fewer schools while the population is growing fast and increasing, and no schools have been built since 1994 in Empangeni town where I reside. [Interjections.] No schools have been built since 1994 and anyone who disputes that should see me.

Children who live outside towns, in the rural areas, travel long distances and members from other provinces have mentioned this. A rural area is just another rural area, no matter what. They travel long distances and there is no help and no financial support for transport or whatever.

The IFP is very concerned that our educators and learners have become victims of violence in and around our schools. Erecting fences around schools and banning scissors is not enough, but more effective strategies such as the employment of security guards and the installation of metal detectors at school gates must be in place to increase the level of security in schools.

The school nutrition programme and no-fee schools policy need to be extended to all schools as one of the key pillars to fight poverty. Many schools that are indeed poverty-stricken were left out of the no-fee schools facility because of the criteria that were used.

The strikes affecting the whole nation today must be avoided through improving employees’ salaries in good time, before they take to the streets.

Izinkinga ezidala uhlevane KwaZulu-Natali futhi ezidinga ukubhekisiswa yilezi ezilandelayo. Emakhaya izikole azikho eduze nalapho kuhlala khona abafundi. Ibanga abalihambayo lide kakhulu. Sicela uMnyango usize kule nkinga. Abafundi mabathole izinto zokuhamba ezizobasiza.

Okwesibili, ukubulala esizwa ngakho okwenzeka phakathi komfundi nomfundi, uthisha nomfundi noma uthisha nothisha kunyantisa igazi. Akube khona umnyakazo owenziwayo ukuqeda lesi simo. Onogada bayadingeka uma kunje – abaphatha izibhamu, hhayi izagila.

Okwesithathu, utshwala nezidakamizwa eduze kwezikole akubhekisiswe. Lokhu kukhona, futhi kuyabulala. Nalapho ngiqhamuka khona KwaZulu-Natali kukhalwa ngalokho, koNgwavuma kukhalwa ngalokho. Izimali ezikhokhelwa isikole aziphele ezikoleni ezinswempu, emiphakathini enswempu; hhayi ukukhetha amabala abantu bebe behlupheka ngokufanayo.

Ngiyawubonga uMnyango Wezemfundo ngoba uma sikhala, noma seseqa ucingo, awusixoshi. NoNgqongqoshe wethu uyasizwela uma kukhona izikhalo eziphuthumayo. Siyafohla nazo ngoba (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)

[The problems that raise emotions and that need to be looked at in KwaZulu- Natal are as follows: In rural areas there are no schools closer to where learners live. The distance they walk to school is very long. We request the department to help with this problem. Let the learners be given transport that will help them.

Secondly, the killing of a learner by another learner, or of a teacher by a learner or between teachers themselves is shocking. And something must be done to get rid of this situation. Security guards are needed in these conditions – and they need to be armed with firearms not knobkerries.

Thirdly, the question of liquor and drugs near schools should be revisited. These things are there and they kill. Even where I come from in KwaZulu- Natal the outcry is just about these two and even as far as Ingwavuma, there is an outcry about drugs and alcohol. School fees from impoverished schools must be abolished, and this should not be for a selected few communities as we know that hunger knows no borders.

I thank the Department of Education because when we raise a concern, even if we do not follow proper channels, it does not chase us away. And our Minister is sensitive when there are urgent concerns. We simply take a short cut and force our way through with these concerns because …]

… I think needs must when the devil drives.

Ngiyabonga kakhulu. [Thank you very much.] Dr F J VAN HEERDEN: Mevrou die Voorsitter, die Minister het in Oktober verlede jaar by Unisa die belangrikheid van moedertaalonderrig vir minstens die eerste ses jaar van skoolopleiding erken en ons, as die Vryheidsfront, verwelkom dit van harte. Die VF Plus is daarop gesteld dat Afrikaans en ander landstale dieselfde status as Engels op onderrigvlak moet hê. Dit is verblydend dat daar universiteite en ander tersiêre instellings is waarin Afrikatale ontwikkel en ingefasseer word.

Vroeër vanjaar was die Nasionale Raad van Provinsies in Gauteng by ’n baie netjies geboude skool, ’n skool wat gebou is in 1980, reeds ’n dubbelverdieping skool. Maar daar was net 42 kinders by die skool, terwyl die skool iets soos ’n duisend kon huisves. Op navraag by die skoolhoof het die skoolhoof aangedui dat die ouers die kinders uit die townships neem na die dorpe en stede toe sodat hulle daar in Engels onderrig kan word.

Opleiding in ’n ander taal as Engels is nie minderwaardig nie. Studente wat voorheen aan sulke universiteite studeer het, het Engels mettertyd bemeester en is vandag goed gekwalifiseerd en in goeie beroepe in Suid- Afrika. Tans word Afrikaans by tradisionele Afrikaanse universiteite onderdruk. By sulke universiteite behoort Afrikaans die voertaal te wees vir daardie studente wat dit verkies. Die neiging om bloot te verengels moet teengestaan word, en dit is wat die VF Plus doen.

Ten grondslag van ’n land se ekonomiese groei lê tot ’n baie groot mate die opleiding van studente in verskillende ingeneurs- en tegniese beroepe. Die bron van kennis vir hierdie studierigtings is inderdaad natuur- en skeikunde en wiskunde en die agb Minister het daarna verwys. Dis ingewikkelde studierigtings wat van kleins af bemeester moet word. ’n Kind kan dit die beste bemeester indien so ’n kind of student taalvaardig is om die ingewikkelde begrippe en konstruksies te bestudeer, aan die een kant, en andersyds moet die studierigtings aangebied word deur ’n persoon wat ewe taalvaardig is. Afrikaans is naas Engels ’n gevestigde wetenskapstaal. Dit moet vertroetel word en daar moet ook geleenthede geskep word vir die ander amptelike tale om eweneens te ontwikkel as ’n wetenskapstaal.

Afrika het baie potensiaal en die agb Adjunkminister het verwys na die vele kultuurfasette wat by wyse van danse aangebied word en dit word verwelkom. Dit maak Afrika aantreklik. Afrika het enorme potensiaal. Die koloniale moondhede het ryk geword uit Afrika. Afrika se potensiaal moet ontgin word. Daardie potensiaal is latent en die VF Plus sal enige poging om al die kulture te ontwikkel van harte ondersteun. Baie dankie. (Translation of Afrikaans speech follows.)

[Dr F J VAN HEERDEN: Madam Chair, in October last year, at Unisa, the Minister acknowledged the importance of mother-tongue education for at least the first six years of schooling, and we, as the FF Plus, welcome it wholeheartedly. It is a matter of principle to the FF Plus that Afrikaans and other official languages should have the same standing as English at educational level. It is heartening that there are universities and other tertiary institutions where African languages are being developed and phased in.

Earlier this year the NCOP visited a very neatly built school in Gauteng, a school that was built in 1980; it was a double-storey school even then. But only 42 children attend this school, which can accommodate approximately 1 000 pupils. In reply to an enquiry about this, the principal indicated that parents take their children from the townships to towns and cities to be taught in English there.

Education in a language other than English is not inferior. Students who previously studied at universities like these mastered English in due course and today they are well-qualified and have good professions in South Africa. At present Afrikaans is being suppressed at traditionally Afrikaans universities. At these universities Afrikaans should be the medium of instruction for those students who prefer it. The tendency to simply anglicise should be opposed, and this is what the FF Plus is doing.

To a very great extent the foundation of a country’s economic growth is the training of students in various engineering and technical professions. The source of knowledge for these fields of study is, in fact, physical science, chemistry and mathematics, and the hon the Minister referred to this. These are complicated fields of study that have to be mastered from an early age. On the one hand, a child can master them best if that child or student has the language competence to study complicated concepts and constructions, while on the other hand the fields of study must be taught by a person who has the same language competence. Next to English, Afrikaans is an established scientific language. It must be cherished and similar opportunities must also be created for the other official languages to develop as scientific languages.

Africa has a lot of potential and the hon Deputy Minister referred to the many cultural facets that are presented through dance, and this is welcomed. This makes Africa attractive. Africa has enormous potential. The colonial powers became rich from Africa. Africa’s potential must be developed. That potential is latent and the FF Plus will wholeheartedly support any effort to develop all cultures. Thank you.]

Mr J MAKGATO (Eastern Cape): Chair of Chairs, hon Minister, Deputy Minister, MECs present, hon members of the NCOP, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, my chairperson from the province who is here to listen to the debate and take some notes, allow me to congratulate the Minister on her well-researched and focused speech. In so doing, let me latch on to the challenges that we have in terms of the National Curriculum Statement.

In my policy speech at the Eastern Cape legislature, I alluded to the shortage of maths, science and technology educators. I also indicated that, as the Council of Ministers, we have agreed that Minister Naledi Pandor must lead a process of contracting foreign educators. This would allow us to improve our skills base and it would release teachers and ensure that they are indeed reskilled to be able to discharge their duties.

Companies in the private sector are good at reskilling people to ensure that a company is aligned with that which the company needs to do. Education is no different, and indeed we need to ensure that we reskill our teachers.

Without waiting for that process to unfold, I have approached universities in the province to assist in filling the gaps in our schools. All universities sent representatives to a meeting that we held. Subsequent to that, I got two invitations, and I’m waiting for more.

It is interesting that, like us, universities identified one of the problem areas as the foundation phase and they want to assist us to correct this. If you build your house on a shaky foundation, its beauty is negated by the faulty foundation and before you know it, it starts crumbling.

They also identified the form of assistance that they could render to our Dinaledi schools and our FET colleges. To disprove the belief that FET colleges are inferior, interestingly, one of our FET colleges completed a project that could not be completed by a municipality. People from FET colleges built and completed houses, and people have occupied them. In an effort to ensure that we eradicate mud structures, we engage FET colleges in order further to better their skills.

We’ve also signed an e-learning agreement with Lower Saxony. We’ll put up a colloquium to ensure that there is competition at high school and other levels. We will challenge competitors to come up with projects and provide them with mentors, and we’ll get independent people to judge these projects.

In concluding my speech, let me deal with the two issues that everybody keeps harping on, as well as the issue of teenage pregnancy. In the province we have done a teenage pregnancy analysis and we have discovered that there is an area where it is prevalent. This we did together with iinkosi [chiefs], the council and the SABC.

UQabane uDlulane uyazi ukuba emaMpondweni kuthethwa ngedikazi. [Comrade Dlulane is aware that Pondos refer to that kind of a person as idikazi.]

We want to ensure that whilst we do not agree with words such as “idikazi” [a woman who gives birth to a child out of wedlock, according to amaMpondo …]

… kodwa umntwana wesikolo akalilo “idikazi”. [… but a school child is not a “idikazi”.]

She remains a school child.

Uyayazi loo nto uBaw’ uSogoni kuba ngummandla wakhe. [Mr Sogoni is aware of that because that is in his precinct.]

We get a speaker to speak on a different theme every day to ensure that we bring back the culture of learning and teaching, and respect for the privacy of our children.

Moving to the decentralisation of our districts, I would want to say to you, Chairperson, that we have moved forward. We have appointed 468 chief education specialists and senior education specialists, to ensure that those districts are able to deliver on their mandates. Among other things, we also want to ensure that they are properly aligned. Currently we have 23 districts, and that is the reason we are stretched, as a department. We’d rather concentrate on circuits, where you bring people closer to schools to be able to give the support that is needed.

Regarding the school nutrition programme, I’d want to say that there is a report - and I’m sure we’ll make it available to the Minister – on the corruption that is prevalent therein. We are putting together a plan, together with the departments of social development, health and economic affairs to green the fields. We are saying: Let’s help the parents to feed their children and move away from the notion that this project is a business. It remains what it was originally intended to be, a poverty alleviation programme. Thank you, Chair of Chairs.

Ms B L MATLHOAHELA: Hon Chairperson, hon Ministers, hon MECs, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, all protocol observed, we appreciate what the hon Minister is doing, especially in relation to no-fee schools. We also realise that Rome was not built in a day and we applaud every effort made thus far. It is with this in mind that we collectively seek solutions to the challenges facing our country, particularly our schools.

However, follow-ups need to be made to establish if some of the poorest of the poor benefit from community structures and safer schools programmes. If they do not benefit, then those in need must be assisted and empowered.

In country towns, in rural areas, one finds children begging in front of shops during school hours. Is it not compulsory for children to be at school? Surely, the schools mark them as “absent”. What is being done about the parents of such children? How much of the department’s resources and funding are geared towards networking with community structures and parents?

We are all aware of the murder case at one of our schools, and one gets the impression that assaults are on the increase, hence the banning of sharp objects and scissors at schools. We would like the Department of Education to clarify three issues: firstly, who is responsible for children begging during school hours? Secondly, who is responsible for children in schools, particularly in classrooms? Thirdly, who assists the parents to understand their rights with regard to the safety of their children?

If we say that children are our future, then let the present dictate the value systems that our children will inherit. I need to bring to the attention of the Minister of Education that some parents are very negligent. In November, I asked the people of a specific school around Eerste River that we come together and discuss these issues. Only a few turned up.

In January I asked the school and the school governing body to invite me to the school so that we could speak to the children. Till now I haven’t received any response. So we see negligence there.

Last but not least, I would like to note here, in the name of the ID, the generosity of spirit on the part of the hon Minister in admitting shortcomings. This takes the sweetness out of criticising the ruling party. Thank you, hon Chairperson.

Ms C M CRONJÉ (KwaZulu-Natal): Chairperson, in this report I will focus on four key areas, namely safe schools, the Masifundisane mass literacy campaign, rural and poor schools excelling and learner transport.

With regard to safe schools, crime and violence are social evils that cannot be addressed by education alone. In KwaZulu-Natal there is an interdepartmental task team consisting of representatives from education, community safety and liaison, the SA Police Service and transport which is looking at short-term and long-term solutions. All schools have safety committees consisting of principals, school governing body members, local councillors, amakhosi, and so forth.

The department has embarked on road shows to consult, inform and guide school governing bodies, principals, district circuits and ward managers about security issues with this joint task team. Our goal for this year is to align the safety committees with local police structures and community policing forums. Where the principal has identified a safety risk, he or she must inform the police or other security structures under whose jurisdiction the school falls. This will guide the police when drawing up a crime-combating plan for the area.

The indaba at King Goodwill Zwelithini’s royal palace at Ingwavuma was attended by 5 000 people and addressed by His Majesty the King and myself in an attempt to find a solution to the problems of schools, particularly in the Obonjeni district. These problems are teenage pregnancy and very high absenteeism due to certain cultural practices, and of course the usual problems.

We are making an extra effort in the Obonjeni district, because it is our poorest performing district. His Majesty emphasised that moral values should be installed at home and there will be follow-up discussions on these issues on the coming weekend.

We met with the stakeholders at KwaMbonambi last year, with a view to identifying challenges and solutions to crime in the area - which is very rife, following a spate of incidents that led to the closure of a number of our schools in the Dondotha area, in particular.

The Tiisa Thuto pilot project started last year in 52 schools. This initiative of Business Against Crime and partnership with ourselves provides training and development for educators, learners and parents on the problems of substance abuse, conflict, violence and gangsterism in schools and in the community. These 52 schools were identified as crime hotspots.

The fencing of schools in all high-risk areas has been prioritised. In the past financial year we fenced an additional 147 schools and we are continuing with that project this year. In the pilot project in the Nongoma area and at schools in Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu, close to 400 security guards were trained in conjunction with community policing forum and sector managers last year, and we will continue with this training as well.

In order to assist Aids orphans, we have launched a project in partnership with the Royal Netherlands Embassy and Media in Education Trust to turn our schools into centres of care and support. A total of 728 schools have been targeted in this four-year programme and the schools are being assisted to build capacity through meetings, workshops on peer education, counselling, nutrition, child care strategies, first aid, food gardens and support for child-headed households. So, it’s quite a comprehensive programme, generously funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy, may I add, and I wish to thank them at the same time.

A mass prayer rally on 15 April 2007 was attended by some 5 000 people in Esikhawini, following several incidents of violence and criminal activity in the Empangeni district in particular. Spiritual leaders and church members from all faith groups and denominations attended the event to join hands in prayer with school governing bodies, learners and so on.

Hon members, I really do regret that, in the National Assembly debate, the IFP actually condemned that prayer rally. That is not all we are doing and it is a pity that they should have chosen to condemn this, whilst it was very well attended and supported even by my colleagues from the Eastern Cape and Free State. I thank you for attending that very important and moving event.

In order to assist schools, our legal component is drafting guidelines on search and seizure to be conducted within the law. We also have a peace pledge that we encourage our children and teachers to sign. It is a peace pledge and a campaign that is aimed at individual accountability and responsibility.

The second issue that I would like to deal with is the Masifundisane Adult Literacy Campaign. Adult learners who want to read, write and count but who are not interested in the formal Abet, as we know it now, now have a chance in this exciting provincial programme. The aim is to have KwaZulu-Natal declared a territory free of illiteracy by 2009 - quite an ambitious aim but we are working towards that.

As we speak, more than 42 000 adult learners are in literacy classes in this Masifundisane project across the province - in churches, on farms, many from prisons, workplaces and in communities. Ninety-two partner organisations are involved and our first group will be graduating very soon. Teaching is conducted by trained facilitators and volunteers. Exciting and effective teaching and learning material that is age appropriate has been developed in isiZulu, the mother tongue of 80% of people in KwaZulu-Natal, and this has been developed by our own colleagues. Materials in isiXhosa, Sesotho, English and Braille are currently being developed, and we should be launching and using those in the near future.

We aim to accelerate the pace in the 2007-08 financial year and, hopefully, we will reach in excess of 300 000 learners and provide work to approximately 3 000 facilitators and 300 supervisors and assessors in this current financial year.

The third issue I would like to deal with is poor schools that excel. Some of our best performing schools in KwaZulu-Natal, and I want to say this very clearly, are located in the most rural areas and in our townships. The two top candidates in mathematics and science in the 2006 senior certificate examination across the province came from Umlazi. They came from Umlazi Comtech School and Velabahleke High School. [Applause.] Both these boys, who were the top candidates, obtained 100% in mathematics and science. [Applause.] That really takes some doing.

At Emhlwaneni High School, in Uthukela district, 75 matric students all had merit passes. At Mconjwana High School, in Umgungundlovu district, 40 out of 55 matric students obtained matric exemptions and all 55 passed. In Mathunjwa High School in the Vryheid district 55 matric students passed with as many as 45 merit passes.

Thokozwayo - this really is a success story - a rural school in Mid-Illovo, jumped from zero in 2005 to hero status by obtaining, in one year, a 100% pass rate. Sizaminqubeko Secondary School, on the border of Mozambique, also managed to pull itself up from below 20% to 100%. The zero to hero principal from Thokozwayo High School, Bongani Ngcongo, said his turnaround strategy involved teachers, parents and the school management team. Together they tackled absenteeism and tardiness in teachers and pupils. He said that was a recipe for success. We should be concentrating our efforts, therefore, in my opinion, also on the human factor.

An individual, a good principal and a good teacher can make a massive difference if they are competent and committed to education. This year we rewarded nine schools that improved their pass rate from below 20% to above 60%, including the ones I have already spoken about, with science kits, sports kits and library book vouchers. Schools that obtained a 100% pass rate were rewarded with computer laboratories, if they did not already have them.

Turning around a school, hon members, is possible. However, it requires strong leadership and support from the department. Excellence can and must be attained in all our schools, hence our motto for this year, which we borrowed and slightly changed from your budget speech last year when you posed the question, “Are we ready to excel?” Our motto for this year is: Ready to excel. We hope we will live up to that. The last area is learner transport … [Time expired.] Thank you.

Mr N D HENDRICKSE: Chairperson, hon Deputy Minister … [Interjections.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Order, please!

Mr N D HENDRICKSE: I hope they’ll be glad to see me when I’m finished. Chairperson, we are concerned, as you are, at the direction education is taking in our country. When we consider the trauma suffered by schools during the apartheid years of 1976, 1980 and 1985, simply because the then education department wanted to enforce an inferior gutter education on the masses, we cannot go back on the hard-fought gains we have attained.

We are now confronted with a new education curriculum called outcomes-based education. Countries around the world that have had this system for a number of years, including the USA, New Zealand and Australia, have in various ways either abandoned the system or amended it drastically.

Teaching time has been shortened as teachers are forced to prepare and mark assessment portfolio work. Principals and teachers across the country are asking: When will the madness stop? Those are not my words. Once again, as in 1985, principals have become the target for not delivering. We must guard against that and not shoot the messenger.

We must seriously ask our dear Ministry that the OBE system be reviewed. All educational role-players should come together with the Ministry and look at a strategic review of the system. I am not saying that it must be jettisoned, but we need to take the good part and throw away the bones. Other countries have done that. Why should we wait dozen years down the line and then find that it really does not work?

I am happy because I heard the Deputy Minister say that nothing is cast in stone and that we should talk about anything as a government. So, any planning and any review should be possible, and I think we should be big enough to look at that.

The serious nature of violent crime and murders involving pupil-on-pupil attacks have made school grounds the new killing fields in South Africa. Whatever intersectoral strategy we have to combat school violence has proved ineffectual to date. What steps, Minister, are you taking to implement drastic action? The limp response of the department to school ground killings does not instil confidence in the department to stem the violence at schools.

Infrastructure development relating to additional classrooms being built needs to be done quickly. We have the annual problem at the start of the school year when textbooks do not arrive on time. Now we’ve heard excuses on that. If there are bottlenecks with distribution, we ask that other service providers must be provided, so that we can cut out this nonsense at the beginning of the year when children don’t have books for months.

Further education and training colleges play an important linkage role in preparing high school leavers to gain some formative skills … [Time expired.] Thank you, Ma’am.

Mr A MOTSWALEDI (Limpopo): Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Deputy Minister, colleagues and the House, seeing that 90% of the speech of Mr Thetjeng of the DA was in support of Limpopo, presumably because he is from there, I assume that the questions he asked about quintiles must be emerging from Limpopo.

I am quite aware that the Minister is going to be telling you exactly how it works, because she has instructed us. However, I also feel that I need to respond to you. We had to find a method to allocate this money in terms of quintiles, but they are not cast in stone, it is just a guiding measure and the Minister has said this so many times. So, the fact that you may find very poor schools in rich quintiles does not mean that those schools cannot be helped. For instance, if you check in Limpopo, you will find that farm schools are scattered all over the province. Some of them are in very rich wards, but all the farm schools have been put in quintile 1, and so it doesn’t go according to which ward they are in.

Boarding schools, which we regard as relatively better off, could be in very poor wards, but would never be put in quintile 1. All over the province principals know and they have been instructed that they need to apply if they think that they have been placed inappropriately. The issue of schools in the same ward falling within the same quintile will not necessarily disadvantage them. I just wanted to clear that up, because that is exactly what we are doing.

It might be possible that you quoted what happened last year. Yes, we know that in Limpopo there were mistakes last year, because we were still learning the system but, this year, we have corrected it so that the situation is different from last year. For instance, the number of schools which were in quintiles 1 and 2 are no longer the same as this year. We have changed that and we have increased them and many more schools are benefiting from that.

The other issue I want to deal with is that of personnel. Hon Tolo, I am not quite sure what could have happened in my province. You mentioned that, at least in the Eastern Cape they know what they are looking for and that they know what their shortages are while all the other provinces don’t. I am not sure what could have happened in my province, because 60% - if not 70% - of our time in Limpopo this year was spent on correcting exactly what you said. Limpopo’s department of education is undeniably the most understaffed department in the whole country, compared to all the other government departments.

A country is as good as its human resources and we also recognise the fact that education is a precondition for development, and that was the theme of the budget speech in Limpopo. So we could not leave that situation unattended. That is why we have completed the absorption of 8 651 teachers who have been temporary teachers all this time; they are now permanent. We have appointed permanently 3 800 HODs who have been in acting positions; they are now permanent. We have appointed 450 deputy principals who have been in acting positions; they are now permanent. We have appointed 600 principals also, who have been in acting positions; they are now permanent. We are adding an extra 1 330 teachers in schools this year, 77 extra deputy principals and 438 extra HODs.

We have completed the job of hiring 150 curriculum specialists or subject advisers. Before the end of this year, within the next six months, we will have appointed 147 chief education specialists, 88 deputy chief education specialists, 50 managers and 134 deputy managers. All in all, 419 officials will have been appointed. As Limpopo, we are also proud that in these appointments three of our districts are headed by women for the first time. This may seem very insignificant, but it’s a success for Limpopo, because it has never happened since 1994.

On the issue of maths, science and technology, we have a legendary shortage of maths and science teachers in the country. I want to believe, hon Minister, that even Dr Verwoerd would not have wished this to happen to us, because whatever he had planned, I don’t think he thought that it would come to this. He would really regret what he has done to the country, if he was still alive.

So, all we need to do, because he is gone, is to fight back and go into battle. For this reason, in Limpopo we have established this year a new directorate specifically to deal with maths, science and technology, headed by a senior manager with chief education specialists and deputy education specialists, specifically to focus every day of their lives on maths, science and technology.

Mr Thetjeng, I know you were a teacher there and that you used to complain every day, but it is my pleasure to announce to you that in January we are reopening Mastec – the maths, science and technology education college - for in-service training. Plans are already advanced in terms of renovation. We believe we will be ready to reopen it in January, and we will remove some of our teachers from school to go for in-service training in Mastec.

We are also putting up five pilot circuit offices which are all equipped with computer laboratories, science laboratories, biology laboratories, libraries, tour libraries and media centres. These would be used for retraining of those teachers who would not be going to in-service training centres. We have provided 52 schools with mobile classrooms, computers and all the other basic facilities that are missing in some of our rural schools.

Apart from the Fundza Lushaka bursary scheme, which has been launched by the Minister, Limpopo has also designed its own degree with the University of Witwatersrand, a degree whereby teachers major in maths, science, technology and African languages. We already have the first 37 students starting this degree at the university.

Minister, you mentioned this issue of rewarding schools. I want to assure you that Limpopo is in total support of that. In fact, if you check Limpopo results, it is the poor rural schools that have excelled in Limpopo. Out of the top 40 schools, less than 17 are former model C schools, and all the others are farm rural schools which have no laboratories, no libraries etc. Those are the ones who are excelling.

You are well aware, Minister, of the schools that are always in the top three in Limpopo: Mbilwi, Glen Cowie and Harry Oppenheimer are all rural schools with no facilities at all. In fact, for your information, because people know Mbilwi, this school got laboratories for the first time this year when laboratories were donated by Angloplat. All the time they have been obtaining first position in maths and science in the whole country, without any laboratories. So, rewarding them will do no harm, Minister.

One of the ladies you gave a prize to in the National Teacher Awards, Ms Mabusela, for the best leadership in secondary education, travels 130 km every morning from Mahwelereng to Tlou-Nare in Sekhukhune and travels back again in the evening. She found a completely unknown school there in Sekhukhune, which is a presidential nodal point. She started getting 100%. Last year she and her school were in the top 40 schools of the province. And that school has no library, no laboratory - nothing. So, if we were to reward them, I don’t think there would be anything wrong with that. We in Limpopo will wholeheartedly support you. Thank you. [Applause.]

Ms M A TSOPO (Free State): Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, hon NCOP members, colleagues in education, ladies and gentlemen, I stand here to support the Budget Vote speech of the Minister, Mrs Naledi Pandor. I will only highlight some of the national agreed priorities, not all of them, owing to the time allocated to me.

In the Free State we have a human resource development plan which we have developed in a way that supports the direction of skills development, which is also in line with equity targets of the department. An amount of R32,9 million was used for the payment of about 897 part-time bursaries for educators, 209 part-time bursaries for public servants, and payment for accredited courses for educators, public servants and learnerships.

The department will launch a literacy strategy this year, and we have since appointed 100 qualified teacher assistants for the foundation phase as a pilot in the Thabo Mofutsanyana district. Twenty-one teacher assistants for special schools have been appointed. The department is also appointing support staff to strengthen our disadvantaged schools in the Free State.

In order to achieve more efficiency and effectiveness in the district, the department is appointing more personnel. I am not going to read the figures due to time constraints. We are decentralising a lot of powers and functions to our districts in the province.

Educator development and support have been identified and singled out as key and central to the improvement of education. For the current budget, educator development has been targeted in a much more improved way. From 2002 to date, the Free State department of education has allocated 1 127 bursaries to underqualified educators and 726 bursaries to unqualified educators. The aim is to ensure that in each and every school in the Free State we have fully qualified educators, Minister, as you have requested us to do. Five hundred bursaries will be allocated for 2008.

The strategy for learner attainment represents an intervention that consists of a planned and sustained series of initiatives and activities with short-term and long-term objectives of improved learner attainment in all schools in the province. The focus of the sustainable matric intervention strategy is on improving the performance of all underperforming secondary schools, in all educational aspects, providing better quality and ensuring fair opportunities for all learners in all grades in the province.

The Quality Improvement, Development, Support and Upliftment Programme is being implemented in the Thabo Mofutsanyana and Lejweleputswa districts, and focuses on the provision of adequate resources for effective implementation of the curriculum as well as improving leadership, management and governance, with a view to improving learner performance.

Similarly, the partnership with the Kagiso Trust is also intended to strengthen curriculum delivery, management and leadership in 10 of our underperforming schools in Thabo Mofutsanyana. We will be spending R15,68 million over a period of three years.

The expanded Dinaledi initiative provides for focused learning in mathematics and science in 35 selected secondary schools in the Free State. Each of the 35 Dinaledi schools has been provided with an additional teaching post for maths or science, as per the needs of each school.

In order to provide learners with a proper foundation in mathematics and science education, the Free State has started with the initiative of academies of learning in each district for specialised learning in mathematics and science from Grade 7 to Grade 11. We currently have a partnership between Absa and Grey College, and we will be extending the project to our four remaining districts during this particular financial year.

In order to support the delivery of the curriculum, the department has, over the last three years, adopted an incremental approach to the establishment of functioning libraries by supplying schools with library resources. We have also appointed 100 technologists to make sure that our libraries, our laboratories and our computer centres function effectively.

Minister, we support you fully with regard to rewards that are supposed to be given to schools, because in our province, Free State, we have already set up an incentive programme for primary and secondary schools to recognise professional excellence by awarding a sum of R150 000 to each deserving primary and secondary school, respectively. I must also further indicate that, for schools to be able to get this money, they must be able to provide us with a business plan for infrastructural development purposes.

In relation to the no-fee schools, I would like to report that in the Free State we consulted with all the education stakeholders for them to agree to get the status of quintile 1 or quintile 2 as no-fee schools. We have a cumulative percentage of 57,7% of all learners who are currently not paying school fees in the Free State, and we are monitoring the situation fully so that some of the principals cannot take a chance with our parents.

With regard to safety in schools, we have launched project Tiisa Thuto Safer Schools, together with Business Against Crime and the department of public safety, security and liaison. What I can also report in this House is that our communities in the Free State are taking full responsibility for our schools. So, there is no need for us really to appoint security guards for them to be able to take care of our learners and our educators.

With regard to capital infrastructure, the Department of Education has made strides in the elimination of infrastructure backlogs in the past few years. Through the Expanded Public Works Programme and in partnership with the school governing bodies, the Free State department of education has upgraded, renovated and maintained 663 schools at a cost of R91,4 million. The department will also be upgrading 305 schools this year.

We are currently building 12 new school halls for disadvantaged schools in our province. We have completed 12 new schools and we are also finalising the construction of 14 new schools this year. We will be building five new schools in the 2007-08 financial year. All these schools have all the facilities, with the exception of sports facilities. The construction of additional facilities will also be taking place in 31 schools.

Furthermore, as the Free State department of education, we have a partnership with the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, Dwaf, and the department of local government and housing to provide basic facilities. Dwaf, Minister, allocated R3,2 million after we engaged them to say we need to speed up delivery regarding basic services to our learners in the province.

This year, we will also be doing painting and paving at our various schools in the Free State through the Letsema project. I must also inform this House that our public-private partnership has been approved by the National Treasury, through which we will be building 10 new schools and upgrading 24 schools and a reform school.

In regard to learner support, the Department of Education is currently feeding 413 546 learners in all qualifying primary schools according to the agreed national days. We are also providing transport to rural learners. We are not targeting urban children but we are targeting farm children. We started with a project where we are transporting 1 434 children. To date, we were transporting 9 804 children and we envisage transporting 12 820 children by the end of the 2007-08 financial year.

In order to improve our rural education, we have closed all nonviable farm school projects. We have a clear programme around how best we are going to close nonviable farm schools in the Free State, for us to be able to accommodate and give quality education to rural learners too, in our province. We are currently operating 11 hostels with 1 373 learners.

Minister, we have also provided uniforms to our vulnerable and orphaned children in the Free State, in partnership with the private sector and municipalities. Twenty thousand children have already been covered and we will also be covering a further 10 000 children this month, through a donation which was made by the private sector. [Applause.]

In closing, this is a mammoth and daunting task that we are faced with. However, we recommit ourselves, as the Free State department of education, to living up to our vision of improving the quality of life of all Free State citizens by providing quality life-long education and training. I therefore support the budget speech of the hon Minister of Education, Mrs Naledi Pandor. [Applause.]

Mr M A SULLIMAN: Chairperson, it is always a pleasure to be part and parcel of this Budget Vote debate in this august House. But, allow me, once more, just to give a special welcome to the Minister and the Deputy Minister by saying: Welcome home! We would like to see more of you in this august House.

Allow me to quote one of our great leaders:

Let me invite Africa to cast her eyes beyond the past and to come enter the present with their woes and tribulations, trials and failures and some successes, and see herself an emerging continent, bursting to freedom through the shell of centuries of serfdom. This is Africa’s age.

This great son of South Africa was a leader of the ANC, a teacher, a father, a traditional leader, a religious leader and a sports administrator. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. This year is the 40th anniversary of the tragic death of Chief Albert Luthuli. Long live the spirit of Chief Albert Luthuli!

It is indeed a pleasure for me to say that the education reform in postapartheid South Africa has been driven by two imperatives. Firstly, the ANC-led government had to overcome the devastation of years of apartheid education and to provide a system of education that builds democracy, human dignity, equality and social justice for all the people of South Africa.

Secondly, the ANC had to establish a system of lifelong learning to enable the country to respond to the enormous economic and social challenges of the 21st century, while also overcoming the enormous burden of illiteracy that was systematically and legislatively extended to the majority of the poorest of the poor in South Africa.

Allow me to elaborate on our school nutrition programme. I must say that I think the Northern Cape has one of the better managed and more effective school nutrition programmes in the Republic of South Africa, which is used as a model for many other provinces. This programme provides employment to over 300 volunteers as food handlers. However, I need to point out that we are experiencing some problems in some of our provinces.

Chairperson, hon Minister, the question that we need to ask ourselves is: Is it not time for us to extend this programme to our secondary schools? I think we need to give this request some serious consideration.

Agb Voorsitter, Minister, die vervoer van leerders is van kardinale belang in Suid-Afrika, maar ons ondervind nog by ons agtergeblewe gemeenskappe in ons landelike gebiede dat leerders nog in baie gevalle lang afstande moet aflê om by hulle skole te kom. Daar is van ons provinsies wat net nie die nodige ag slaan op skoolvervoer nie. Ek dink die tyd het aangebreek dat die departement met ’n nasionale beleid vorendag moet kom om eenvormigheid oor hierdie aspek te kry. Ek hoop dat u in u repliek op hierdie debat vir ons sal sê of dit wel ’n goeie idee is, al dan nie. Indien nodig sal ons u wetgewing steun om dit moontlik te maak.

Aangaande leerderondersteuningsmateriaal, oor ’n tydperk het ons uitgevind dat die probleem nie noodwendig lê by die provinsies wat nie hulle bestellings betyds indien nie, maar dit is eerder ’n geval van waar verskaffers wat die boeke aan ons moet voorsien dit nie betyds aflewer nie. Dit wil vir my voorkom dat in provinsies soos in die Noord-Kaap waar ons nie groot bestellings plaas nie, hierdie verskaffers eerder kyk na provinsies soos Gauteng waar hulle gou geld kan maak, dan voorsien hulle daardie provinsies met hierdie leerderondersteuningsmateriaal en skeep die ander provinsies af. Ek wil ’n beroep op u doen dat u en u span met hierdie verskaffers sal ontmoet ten einde hierdie euwel uit die weg te ruim.

Dit bring my by die kwessie van infrastruktuur. Die agb Minister het ook daarvan melding gemaak. Klaskamers word aangebring om sodoende klasruimte te skep in ons skole. Ons wil graag van die agb Minister weet: sal dit nie ’n goeie idee wees as ons nasionale norme en standaarde daarstel wanneer ons nuwe skole bou nie? Dan kan daar doelgerigte voorsiening gemaak word ten einde laboratoriums en biblioteke en administrasieblokke te bou. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)

[Hon Chairperson, Minister, the transporting of learners is of the utmost importance in South Africa, but in our previously disadvantaged communities in our rural areas we still find that in many instances learners still have to travel long distances to get to their schools. There are some of our provinces that simply do not give the necessary attention to school transport. I think the time has come for the department to come up with a national policy to have uniformity in this regard. I hope that in your reply to this debate you will tell us whether or not this is a good idea. If need be, we will support your legislation to make this possible.

Regarding learner support material, we have discovered over a period of time that the problem does not necessarily lie with the provinces for not placing their orders in good time, but it is more a case of the suppliers who have to supply us with the books not delivering in time. It seems to me that provinces such as the Northern Cape, where we do not place large orders, are neglected. These suppliers rather look at provinces such as Gauteng where they can make money quickly, and then they supply those provinces with learner support material and neglect the other provinces. I want to appeal to you that you and your team meet with these suppliers in order to eliminate this unjust practice.

This brings me to the question of infrastructure; the hon Minister also mentioned it. Classrooms are being built in order to create more classroom space in our schools. We would like to know from the hon Minister: Would it not be a good idea to establish national norms and standards when we build new schools? Then purposeful provision can be made in order to build laboratories and libraries and administration blocks.]

Hon Minister, we, as a select committee, visit some of our schools when we do our oversight work. I remember visiting a school in the Eastern Cape - yes, it was a school catering for learners with special needs. There was an outcry from the teachers there trying to cope with the circumstances at that particular school. These schools cater for learners with special needs and have to be visited by doctors, nurses, psychiatrists etc, but this is not happening. I think what we need to do, perhaps, is to get the Departments of Health and Social Development to assist us in these particular areas.

During this House’s provincial week, from 14 May to 18 May, we as the Northern Cape delegation visited the Kgalagadi and Frances Baard districts, including Pampierstad, and I know the Minister knows Pampierstad very well. These areas were under the North West province, but are now, after the new demarcation process, under the Northern Cape. I would like to mention some of the challenges raised during that particular visit. Our province has calculated the cost of incorporating 194 schools and 58 970 learners at an amount of R30 million. The rural nature of the Kgalagadi area compared with the rest of the Northern Cape has led to 79% of the learners being placed in national quintiles 1 and 2, thereby allowing 41 657 learners to benefit from the no-fee schools programme. The application of the norms across the Northern Cape will see learners in the Kgalagadi area receiving significantly more per capita in 2007 than in previous years while they were still under North West.

Currently, the North West department of education provides an educator- learner ratio of 1:40. The Northern Cape has maintained an average standard of 1:33 over the past five years. Schools in the Kgalagadi area are in need of 329 educators. To ensure teaching and learning for such grades, posts have to be filled. And, should funding become available, keep in mind that there could be a need to employ temporary educators.

The reason why I am raising these matters is that I’ve listened to the Minister’s speech. Education is a concurrent function, but there are quite a number of disjunctures where one province applies a certain principle and another province does something else. I think we need to get some uniformity. Minister, we welcome the idea of you making a review of the whole system and then saying what will be the best model for us, at the end of the day.

We have also made an analysis of the situation in Kgalagadi and estimate we will have to provide access for 40 478 learnersregarding the school transport programme. Annually, the Northern Cape spends about R2 681 per learner, which translates into about R108 million for learner transport, which could not be fully funded due to limited resources.

Infrastructure maintenance and repairs backlogs in Kgalagadi are a matter of concern, and one that could be addressed over a period of three or four years, depending, again, on budget availability. Some of these schools were built by tribal leaders and the communities themselves and some of them were built out of mud. Our province would like to upgrade at least 20 of these schools in the meantime, but it will cost us about R500 000 to upgrade those schools. Our request to the hon Minister is to make some special interventions so that we can address these inequalities in those particular areas.

It is regrettable that our children are not in school today due to the strike. We would like to express our hope that this problem will be sorted out as quickly as possible so that teaching and learning in our classes can return to normal. We want to make use of this opportunity, hon Minister, to thank you and your department for the co-operation that we receive from you. We also want to thank the director-general and his team. They never refuse to come and see us, and we wish them well in the future. Thank you very much. Ke a leboga. The MINISTER OF EDUCATION: Chairperson, my thanks go to all hon members and the MECs, particularly, for their contributions to the debate this afternoon.

I’d just like to briefly refer to the matter of the strike that the hon Sulliman spoke about a moment ago. I have received reports of children who want to be in the classroom, tutoring themselves and continuing with their schoolwork. There are allegations that children have been intimidated by certain persons. We’re not sure whether that was done by members who are participating in the strike or other individuals. We’ve had instances in which children were pulled out of schoolyards or school gates were closed. We have also had instances at some centres in which learners were to write part-time exams in adult education where some individuals are alleged to have come forward, grabbed the exam papers, torn them up, and refused to allow those candidates to write.

Now, we understand a strike process as being the withdrawal of your labour, but that does not allow for intimidation of others, in exercising your rights. We must reject such intimidation with the contempt and harshest words that it deserves. [Applause.]

My apologies, Chairperson. I have a cold which I caught during my travel and hard work. I think what hon members have been saying is that, in education, what we should do is what needs to be done to succeed. We all know what it is: hard work - as I said - commitment, dedication, and attention to our tasks.

I would like to join those hon members, such as MEC Cronje from KwaZulu- Natal, in thanking our foreign and local donors who assist us in education. There are many, particularly several embassies that have representatives in South Africa, as well as the private sector, who give us invaluable assistance in addressing our challenges in education.

Three core areas have been raised in the debate. The first one could be classified as matters of values and social cohesion - the issues around teenage pregnancy, violence in our schools, the increasing prevalence of drugs in many of our schools, and the impact of an HIV-positive status on children in our schools.

I think, on this matter of values, that while there is much that education is and can be doing, there are roles that we as community members, that you as public representatives, and that we as parents should be playing. I find it quite amazing that it is very easy for us as adults to want to argue for the rights of young mothers to return to school, and yet play no role in teaching them how to stop themselves from becoming pregnant.

I think that, as adults, we need to play our full role. We should be talking to children about staying away from early sexual activity; we should be talking both to boys and girls; we should be ensuring that our young people understand that having a child far too early is negative both for the young mother as well as for the young child who, obviously, will be deserted by the mother and left in the hands of another family member and not the person who is their biological parent.

Clearly, as the member of the ID suggested, the father has a role as well. The problem is we can’t always identify them. In our measures, we have indicated that both the father and the mother should play a role in caring for their child for at least two years. The notion that it is all right to have a baby, and two days later dump it on somebody and off you go to school is one that we should question as a society. This is what our measures try to address. But, of course, we won’t compel them to stay at home. We are trying to set in place a value framework, which our society has the choice to accept and utilise or to reject, for some other system that they prefer. All we can do is provide indicators.

On the matter of violence, we have acted; we have provided greater resources to schools to create safe and caring schools. We know that we must do more about conflict resolution. In Eerste River, for example, you had a young person being bullied to the extent, it is suggested, that they acted in the way they did. The action was absolutely intolerable. But, as adults, we should have addressed the conflict issues among young people in order to teach them new attitudes and new ways of living together in diversity.

For the first time, our communities are mixing in many areas. Lots of conflict arises. We need to teach young people respect for each other and to help them learn how to resolve a problem without resorting to a knife or a gun. At every point, every morning, at every gate, we should be standing with a box with envelopes and say, “Hand in anything dangerous. Put it here. If we catch you with it in the classroom, you will likely face arrest.” We should do that every day to create the atmosphere which says: nothing which is unacceptable on school grounds will be allowed into school.

On the issue of drugs, again, we must educate young people about the dangers. Let them visit one or two rehabilitation centres. Let them go to a hospital ward; let them see what drugs do to your brain. It might be nice, that first experience, but after that, you are destroying yourself. Once addicted, it is extremely difficult to get out of addiction, and each one of us has a role in this. This is not my responsibility alone; it is the responsibility of all of us. The fact that I am a Minister does not absolve you, or the community, or parents, or brothers, or sisters from advising each other and working together to build positive values and attitudes.

A second aspect that was dealt with is the matter of development needs. Clearly, infrastructure – as we have indicated – is an area we are acting upon. Improving the remuneration of teachers, ensuring that there are performance agreements and rewards associated with performance, form part of another development we are working on.

Regarding school feeding, clearly we are improving in this area and are also exploring how we can expand. On the matter of no-fee schools, I indicated that there had been difficulties with the initial implementation, as there always will be difficulties when you start something new.

A lot of people who like talking have never had the challenge of building a democracy; have never had the challenge of working in government. It’s very nice to talk, but if you knew the mess that we are dealing with, then you would know exactly how tough it is to make the change. And, if you believe educational change is a five-year thing, you do not understand education. So, study education history and learn to see that what we are doing is going to lead to the kind of outcomes that I am referring to.

On the matter of academic performance, clearly I agree with hon members. We do need to address the issue and place of mother-tongue-based education in our system. We cannot introduce a foreign language into the schooling of our children early, but it is possible to use mother tongue and to have our children learn at least one other language well, if not two more. But the base, the foundation – utilising the mother tongue - is important and is something that we are pursuing in our education system.

I believe we must do more to develop the indigenous languages of South Africa. I am glad that many of our universities have begun to develop programmes that do exactly this. I am working on a funding formula to support those universities that are committed to multilingualism, because it is a policy we want to encourage and to actively develop.

On the matter of academic performance, clearly, if there are no teachers in our schools, we can’t expect a better maths performance. So, I hope, hon members, in the next few days when you do your motions, you will support us in our plan to recruit foreign teachers to teach scarce-skills subjects. We don’t intend to displace any South African teacher, but it is our intention that if there is a South African teacher who is not qualified to teach that subject, we will offer them a bursary to acquire a degree, and we will have the foreign teacher in place on contract.

Our intention is to develop our local skills, not to throw out our teachers, but we can’t wait for our teachers to develop the skills, and let our children keep failing each year. So I hope you will support us in that regard, and explain it clearly in the media, because it appears to be absolutely misunderstood.

Of course, if hon members are aware of qualified mathematics and science teachers – qualified, not those who did these subjects in matric, but qualified to teach in high school - please bring those names to me and we will fill the vacancies that exist. I doubt that you have 6 000 names, because that is the size of the need in some places. If you do though, you are very welcome to give me those indicators.

We also need to work much harder to encourage young people to work. You cannot succeed by osmosis. You cannot succeed by imagining that if you forward a solution, you absorb it and it sinks into your mind. You have to put in the effort to learn. There is no mystery about learning.

So, young people who think they can run around in the streets, be in the local shebeen, do all the wrong things and somehow they will pass matric, are fooling themselves. Teachers who believe they need not be in class, that they can wander around, who don’t teach the full week, and who don’t teach the full number of hours and days in the year, are not going to have success. There is no mystery about success. Hard work pays off. Dedication to task pays off.

We can improve the performance in maths and science with qualified teachers, with real effort. We can improve our performance at senior certificate level with hard work, with dedication, with good teaching, and with performance. We can also, as hon members – each of us – adopt a school. Just go into a community and find a school that is not performing as well as it should. Say to them: “I will spend time finding out what your challenges are. I will try to assist you. If it is the government that is not supporting you, as an MP, I will go to the Minister and find out why you are not getting the support that you should.” Why don’t you adopt a school? Let’s see what 90 members can do to change our situation. Let us use public-private partnerships much more positively than we might be doing at the moment.

I must say that I am terribly disappointed by the remarks of Mr Hendrickse. I am not sure how he can assume that the very exciting curriculum change we’ve had in South Africa can be compared to gutter education. We had to change the curriculum in this country. The manner of doing it may have posed massive difficulties, but the fact of it having to be done is unquestionable. So, all we should be saying is: “It’s great that we had a curriculum change, but let us make it far more efficient, effective, and let it have meaning for teachers.”

A lot of teachers don’t want the curriculum because it is demanding. They have to think in order to teach it. There is nothing that you’re given which you will give to the children and say “memorise; regurgitate”. To say we should revise the curriculum … we’ve done so and we had a whole revision process. In fact, the curriculum was called the “revised national curriculum”. Now that we have rewritten all of it, redeveloped all the material, finally, for Grades 1 to 12, we have a National Curriculum Statement for South Africa.

So there has been change. Interestingly enough, in fact, we have changed it tremendously, in a far better way than has been done by colleagues in the countries that you mentioned. Many of them are now looking at the revisions that we have done. So, hon member, rather than listening to many of the dismal persons who criticise without a true, informed look at what is happening, I would suggest that what you do is get to know our curriculum better, and see some of the exciting things and possibilities that it offers for our young people and help us to get it right, to get it better. But change had to come; change will stay. All we will do is improve what must be done.

Finally, I agree that transformation in higher education is an aspect that we must look at. The fact of no-go areas, of separate residences, of very negative right-wing practices, are things that we must address on our campuses. And we will be working with our vice chancellors to ensure that all our universities are truly South African universities. Thank you very much, Chairperson. [Applause.]

Debate concluded.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Thank you very much, hon Minister. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, hon Minister, the Deputy Minister, the MECs and special delegates who attended this informative debate. I do believe that provinces and members will be able to assist and that after they have done their oversight visits they will also inform the Minister about what is happening on the ground. Thank you very much.

                  HEALTH PROFESSIONS AMENDMENT BILL

            (Consideration of Bill and of Report thereon)

Ms J M MASILO: Motlotlegi Modulasetulo wa Khansele ya Bosetšhaba ya Diporofense, Tona ya Lefapha la Thuto le Motlatsa-Tona wa Lefapha la Thuto, baeti ba rona ba ba tswang kwa diporofenseng … [Hon Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Minister of Education and Deputy Minister of Education, our guests from the provinces …]

… hon members and colleagues, the Health Professions Amendment Bill of 2006 can be regarded as the continuation of a process initiated in 1994 to transform the South African health sector, including all statutory councils, with the aim of improving their accountability, defining their roles and relationship with the Department of Health, and facilitating transformation.

In 1999 the Minister of Health accelerated the transformation process by appointing a task team on the transformation of statutory councils in order to investigate the issue of transformation of the statutory councils.

The task team concluded, amongst other things, that the primary purpose of the professional councils is to protect the public interest, including the delivery of quality care. In addition, it is also recommended that there is a need for smaller, but more productive, professional councils, viz a process of streamlining councils.

The Health Professions Amendment Bill seeks to incorporate the recommendations made by the task team, as well as to bring the principal Act, Act 56 of 1974, in line with a number of changes introduced in the South African public sector after 1994.

The amendment of the Health Professions Act is informed by the following: the need to transform professional boards in terms of racial demography - a shift away from boards that are racially skewed to more representative bodies; the need to include provisions on co-operative governance as the Health Professions Council of SA is listed as a scheduled public entity in the Public Finance Management Act, Act 1 of 1999; the need to ensure a more streamlined HPCSA by reducing the number of council members; the need to address the shortcomings in the principal Act, which fails to make provision for the appointment of the president and registrar of the council; regulating the conduct of professionals and the evaluation and accreditation of teaching institutions; and the need to ensure that the current Act is more aligned with the relevant provisions of the National Health Act, Act 61 of 2003, which serves as the overarching framework for the health sector in South Africa.

Whilst the Health Professions Amendment Bill outlines a number of objectives, its primary aim is to continue with the broader process of transformation of the health sector, including the provision of essential services to our communities.

There were two typographical errors in the Bill we passed as a committee: “or” instead of “of”, and “issuing” instead of “issued”. However, these errors were corrected in the ATC before printing. I thank you. [Applause.]

Debate concluded.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Thank you, hon member. That concludes the debate. I shall now put the question. The question is that the Bill be agreed to. As the decision is dealt with in terms of section 65 of the Constitution, I shall first ascertain whether all delegation heads are present in the Chamber to cast their provinces’ votes. Are all delegation heads present?

HON MEMBERS: Yes.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): In accordance with Rule 71, I shall first allow provinces the opportunity to make their declarations of vote if they so wish. We shall now proceed to the voting on the question. I shall do this in alphabetical order per province. Delegation heads must please indicate to the Chair whether they vote in favour, against, or abstain from voting. Eastern Cape?

Ms B N DLULANE: Oos-Kaap ondersteun. [Eastern Cape supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Free State? Mr C J VAN ROOYEN: Vrystaat ondersteun. [Free State supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Gauteng?

Mr E M SOGONI: Siyavuma. [We support.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): KwaZulu-Natal?

Mr D D GAMEDE: Siyawusekela. [We support it.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Limpopo?

Ms H F MATLANYANE: Limpopo re a e thekga. [Limpopo supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Mpumalanga?

Mr B J TOLO: Mpumalanga sopport.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Northern Cape?

Mr C M GOEIEMAN: Noord-Kaap ondersteun. [Northern Cape supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): North West?

Mr Z S KOLWENI: North West ke wa rona. [North West supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Western Cape?

Mr F ADAMS: Wes-Kaap ondersteun. [Western Cape supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): All provinces voted in favour. I therefore declare the Bill agreed to in terms of section 65 of the Constitution.

Bill accordingly agreed to in accordance with section 65 of the Constitution.

CONSIDERATION OF REPORT OF JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE ON IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE AND STATUS OF CHILDREN, YOUTH AND DISABLED PERSONS - CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND ITS OPTIONAL PROTOCOL

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr T S Setona): Chairperson, thanks for this opportunity because it has been a very long sitting today. I’m going to move on the premise and assumption that this protocol was printed in the Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports, and that hon members have gone through the protocol.

Those who are part of the committee were part and parcel of the deliberations on the protocol and the optional protocol. On that basis, we also voted for this protocol unanimously at committee level. To outline this, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol were adopted by acclamation in terms of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 61/106 on 13 December 2006. The convention and optional protocol were opened for signature by all states at the United Nations headquarters in New York as of 30 March 2007.

This convention reaffirms the universal commitment to the rights and dignity of all people, without discrimination. The convention obliges state parties to, inter alia, guarantee that persons with disabilities enjoy all human rights on an equal basis with others, including their inherent right to life; equal rights and advancement of women and girls with disabilities; equal rights to own and inherit property; access to justice on an equal basis; the right to liberty and security; and freedom from torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

The optional protocol to the convention provides for an individual complaints mechanism in which a state party to the protocol recognises the competence of the committee on the rights of persons with disabilities to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of individuals or a group of individuals who claim to be victims of violation by that state party of the provisions of the convention subject to its jurisdictions.

I must conclude by mentioning that Dr Essop Goolam Pahad - Minister in the Presidency - signed the convention on behalf of South Africa on 7 March

1. I beg this august House to accept this convention. Thank you.

Debate concluded.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Order! I shall now put the question in respect of the Third Order. The question is that the report be adopted. As this decision is dealt with in terms of section 65 of the Constitution, I shall first ascertain whether all delegation heads are present in the Chamber to cast their provinces’ votes. Are all delegation heads present?

HON MEMBERS: Yes. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): In accordance with Rule 71 I shall first allow provinces the opportunity to make their declarations of vote if they so wish. We shall now proceed to the voting on the question. I shall do this in alphabetical order per province. Delegation heads must please indicate to the Chair whether they vote in favour, against, or abstain from voting. Eastern Cape?

Ms B N DLULANE: In favour.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Free State?

Mr C J VAN ROOYEN: Free State supports.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Gauteng?

Mr E M SOGONI: Elethu. [We support it.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): KwaZulu-Natal?

Mr D D GAMEDE: Siyavuma. [We support.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Limpopo?

Ms H F MATLANYANE: Ke ya rona. [We support it.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Mpumalanga?

Mr B J TOLO: Mpumalanga e a e seketela. [Mpumalanga supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Northern Cape?

Mr C M GOEIEMAN: Noord-Kaap ondersteun. [Northern Cape supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): North West?

Mr Z S KOLWENI: In favour.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Western Cape?

Mr F ADAMS: Wes-Kaap ondersteun. [Western Cape supports.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): All provinces voted in favour. I therefore declare the report agreed to in terms of section 65 of the Constitution.

Report accordingly adopted in accordance with section 65 of the Constitution.

The Council adjourned at 17:10. ____

            ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS

                         MONDAY, 4 JUNE 2007

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Council of Provinces

1. The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Affairs:

(a)    Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the
     Republic of South Africa and the Government of Saint Lucia on the
     Contribution of the South African Police Service to the
     International Police Component for the ICC Cricket World Cup West
     Indies 2007, tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution,
     1996.


(b)    Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the
     Republic of South Africa and the Government of Barbados on the
     Contribution of the South African Police Service to the
     International Police Component for the ICC Cricket World Cup West
     Indies 2007, tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution,
     1996.


(c)    Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the
     Republic of South Africa and the Government of Grenada on the
     Contribution of the South African Police Service to the
     International Police Component for the ICC Cricket World Cup West
     Indies 2007, tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution,
     1996.

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The President of the Republic

(a)    Strategic Plan for the Presidency for 2007/08 to 2009/10.

1. The Minister of Transport

(a)    Booklet containing the Department of Transport’s Parliamentary
      Questions and Answers for 2006.

1. The Minister of Housing

(a)    Strategic and Performance Plans for the Department of Housing
for 2007 to 2010.

1. The Minister of Arts and Culture

(a)    Strategic Plan for the Department of Arts and Culture for April 2007 to March 2010.


                        TUESDAY, 5 JUNE 2007

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Minister for Provincial and Local Government

   (a) Strategic Plan for the Department of Local Government for 2007 to 2012.