Pretoria - Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is expected to release the ‘jobs for cash’ report later this month.
The release of the report was postponed twice, with the last postponement being as a result of an agreement between the Minister and the Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to allow stakeholders to make their inputs into the report.
The Minister was speaking to the media ahead of tabling the Department of Basic Education’s Budget Vote in Parliament.
At last year’s Budget Vote, Minister Motshekga announced that she would appoint the MTT to investigate allegations of corrupt activities in the appointment of promotional posts in the sector. The team has since submitted its final report to the Minister, which she has processed through Cabinet.
Cabinet recommended that the department should develop a plan of action as government’s response to the report, which should include wide consultations with the relevant basic education stakeholders and partners.
The Council of Education Ministers, the Heads of Education Departments Committee, teacher unions as well as the principals and school governing body associations have been consulted.
“This was done after written and verbal representations were made to the Ministerial Task Team. During the consultations, stakeholders requested an extension of the release of the report to allow them time to refine their inputs. After consulting with the MTT, I agreed to postpone the release of the report by 14 days. Therefore, the Ministerial Task Team report will now be released around the 20th of May 2016,” she said.
In response to a question, the Minister said she “has no reason for not wanting to release the report.”
Improving education
Meanwhile, the Minister said the year had been productive for the sector with a lot of work having been done in the past financial year to improve education systematically for South African children.
“We have aligned our Action Plan to take into account the 2030 timelines prescribed in the National Development Plan (NDP). Improved learner achievements and school performance continues to be our main goal,” she told media.
This year’s Budget Vote, she said, focuses on learning and teaching in the sector, equity, quality, and inclusive life-long learning opportunities for all.
The department is looking forward to the release of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SAQMEC) IIII results in June.
“These are the international assessments we take part in as South Africa. The preliminary report indicates that we can look forward to significant improvements in our overall results,” said Minister Motshekga.
These international assessments are an important barometer to note where the country needs to focus its interventions in order to improve, and also to track progress where it is made.
Read to Lead campaign
One of the things that has come out markedly in previous assessments is the low literacy levels of learners. The department thus embarked on the Read to Lead campaign, which is focused on turning South Africa into a reading nation.
“We all need to start to read recreationally for pleasure. Research indicates that learners that read for pleasure are often up to two grades ahead of their peers who don’t read for fun,” said Motshekga.
In 2015’s Budget Vote, the Minister announced plans to supply 1 000 libraries per year.
To date more than 3 000 schools have been provided with mobile and trolley libraries as well as classroom reading corners through donations and direct involvement of the private sector, NGOs, and individuals.
Improvement in drop-out rates
The department’s interventions have been bearing fruit, with drop-out rates declining and improved retention rates up to Grade 9. In addition, more young people are matriculating yearly than ever before.
“We are still experiencing challenges in drop-out rates from Grades 9 to 12 and it is for this reason that we have introduced the Second Chance Matric Progamme as a means to mitigate this,” said Minister Motshekga.
Supporting rural schools
Minister Motshekga said one area of inefficiency that still persists is that of the rural education setting.
“In the MTEF [medium term expenditure framework], for 2016 we will improve support to rural and small schools after an intensified programme of rationalisation and mergers of unviable schools has been finalised in all provinces.”
The merging of schools, she said, is not an easy process and the department anticipates that it will come across challenges as these processes unfold.
“We will deal with them as they arise, as this is an absolute necessity if we hope to see real change in the form of quality education in these schools,” she said. - SAnews.gov.za
