NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DEBATE ON THE EDUCATION VOTE, 24 MAY 2001, BY MOSIBUDI

MANGENA - DEPUTY MINISTER OF EDUCATION

Madam Speaker

A very wise woman called Sue Grafton observed that if high-heeled shoes were a good thing, men would be wearing them. You see, high-heeled shoes are not kind to your back, they distort your natural posture, weaken your foot grip on mother earth and restrict your movement and speed. Although men tend to be the ones designing and making shoes, they would not wear high-heeled shoes.

 This is just as odd as preparing a meal you are not prepared to eat. You cook food for others, but you eat out. There should be something uncomfortable about that scenario. Those of us involved in public education - honourable members sitting in this house, others sitting in the other nine parliaments elsewhere in our country, managers at different levels in the public service and the teachers in over 27000 ordinary public schools - design, fund, administer and deliver public education for millions of children in this land.

But most of us prefer to send our own children elsewhere. Are we perhaps peddling high-heeled shoes that we ourselves are not prepared to wear? Not that education is alone in this. Nurses, doctors, administrators and of course members of parliament, collectively run public health in this country. But when we are sick, we go elsewhere. Our medical bills, paid for by medical aid towards which the state makes a hefty contribution, also go elsewhere, which, of course, would have made a big difference to the public health system if it was so favoured. Are we perhaps peddling another brand of high-heeled shoes that we ourselves are not prepared to wear?

Some would ask: What do you expect? They would say if you are scientific you would know that this is a class thing. Of course. But we also know that most of us, whilst we are not working class or peasant by definition, we are progressive patriots who have just emerged from a long struggle against oppression, injustice and discrimination. During that struggle we experienced solidarity across class affiliation and were conditioned by the same struggle to loathe unfairness and to embrace the values of public spiritedness. We should therefore be capable of peddling flat-heeled shoes that we ourselves would be prepared to wear.

The political training and cultivation we received from the crucible of that same struggle should tell us there is something discordant when teacher unions, which occasionally speak working class language, have their members sending their own children elsewhere, and then short -change the children of workers and peasants in public schools through lack of application, secure in the knowledge that their own off-spring are receiving a good education.

Madam Speaker, we should candidly admit that education in our country faces many formidable challenges, among them a lack of enough money. But, at 21% of the total, education already receives the largest slice of the national budget, and whilst we should strive for more, it appears in the context of other pressing and competing needs of our society, such as housing, running water, health and others, we are not likely to afford what we need.

However, we can achieve a lot more with the more than R55 bn at our disposal. For that to happen, we need the restoration of the ethos, spirit, commitment and passion that characterised our education in the not-so-distant past. And we can do it. There are a few among us who are showing us the way.

On the 10th of this month I visited Mtwalume High School in the Port Shepstone district, South Coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal. You drive through one forest of sugar cane after another to get there, and the rural community in the area is poor. But when you enter the school yard of Mtwalume High, your spirits are raised to the heavens. The fence is intact, the grass is cut and trimmed, there is not a single stray paper in sight, the walls are painted and clean and every window pane is in place. The principal's office is neat with education-related calendars and other posters on the walls.

You enter the staff room and you are greeted by a dignified, self-assured and professional group of teachers. Mr. Bheki Mdhluli, the principal of Mtwalume High School, and his staff lead you to the assembly in the open, where orderly rows and rows of our children in neat uniforms wait quietly. They eagerly interact with whatever is said. Mr. Mdhluli and his staff tell you they achieve not less than 95% matric pass every year. Your heart is filled with nothing but pride and joy and hope. You don't ask, but there is no doubt in your mind that the teaching staff at Mtwalume High School will wear their flat-heeled shoes with pride.

And Madam Speaker, this is a big deal. A lot of our public schools are not like Mtwalume. The grass in their yards is overgrown, there is litter everywhere, a lot of window panes are broken, the walls and desks are full of foul graffiti and the kids cannot be hushed. Mtwalume High School does not receive any more money than the other public schools. What is different about that school is that it has the right spirit, ethos, passion and commitment. Yes, money is very important, but it is not everything.

Madam Speaker, in his State of the Nation Address from this podium earlier this year, the President stressed the need for us as a nation to develop our human resources and to work towards bridging the gaping digital divide. To do this, we need good performance in Maths and Science by our learners. Also, the National Plan On Higher Education which was announced recently, which among other things envisages an increase in participation rates of our young people from the present 15% to 20% with a correct mix of the humanities, science and business studies i.e. at a ratio of 40:30:30 respectively. Again for this to happen, we need more of our learners to graduate from high school with good passes in Maths and Science at Higher Grade so that they may proceed to tertiary level ready and prepared to enter studies in various fields in the desired proportions.

Presently, our learners, especially those from the African component of our population, are not doing well at all in these crucial gateway subjects. Of the ± 400 000 students from this section who wrote matric in the year 2000, only 18 000 took Mathematics and out of this a paltry 3½ thousand of them passed mathematics at Higher Grade. This is less than 1%. This is a disaster. We know there is absolutely nothing wrong with our kids, but there is a lot wrong with us, the adults, and the environment and opportunities we create for them to learn under. When schools such as Mbilwi, Aha-Thuto, Leshata, Mtwalume and others give them opportunities by creating the right climate of discipline, love, teaching and learning, the kids excel.

Two of the more important reasons for this appalling failure rate or non-participation in mathematics by our learners, are the many dysfunctional schools in our townships and villages, as well as the large number of unqualified and underqualified Maths and Science teachers in our public schools. In recent weeks, the National Department of Education has been consulting extensively with Provincial Departments of Education, private companies, teacher unions and NGO's on a strategy to improve the attainment of learners in Mathematics and Science. We found that all our provinces are doing something to address this enormous challenge.

The strategy we are considering and discussing with the provinces contains the following elements:

(a) A programme to upgrade and enrich the many serving teachers who are underqualified or unqualified.

(b) In order to address the chronic undersupply of Maths and Science teachers, the Education Department intends to recruit learners with good passes in these subjects in Matric and offer them scholarships to train as teachers.

(c) To explore the use of technology to maximise and expand the expertise of the Maths and Science teachers we have in the country, so that their lessons can reach more learners.

(d) We have already asked universities and technikons to play a role in advancing this course.

(e) To seek short-term intervention by and co-operation with other governments in the area of teacher training. To this end, there is an agreement with Cuba to have some of their English speaking teacher trainers to work with clusters of teachers in our districts to improve the qualifications and skills of our teachers.

(f) To investigate whether there are qualified retired teachers who can still be used in some way to improve the situation

(g) A hundred schools dedicated to science, mathematics and technology are being selected throughout the country to sharpen our focus on this matter.

As we implement this strategy, as we co-operate and consult with others, some elements of the strategy might become stronger than others.

Madam Speaker, the level of non-participation in and the rate of failure of Mathematics and Science by our learners are so serious that the Ministry of Education feels that we cannot afford to have business as usual. Drastic measures need to be taken to correct the situation. In this campaign we need the co-operation and participation of all of us, the parents, school governing bodies, the teachers, learners, business, other government departments and NGO's. Next month, i.e. June, we plan to formally launch this strategy. We hope that the support of all of us will show. The future of our young people, of our country, the health of our economy, the success of the National Human Resource Development Strategy and of the National Plan On Higher Education, all depend on our success in improving the attainment of our learners in Maths and Science. Under our democratic dispensation, our children ought to get a better education than before. Yet in many cases it is not so. This is not because of a bad syllabus, discrimination or money. But because many of us have lost the right ethos that attended our education in the past, the spirit that enabled us to get education even under difficult circumstances.

The Department of Education will continue to use the infrastructure and resources intrusted to it to create proper environment and facilities for the younger members of our society. We would like to see our people having great confidence in and ownership of all the educational institutions in their neighbourhood. We will know that this is the case when learners wake up in the morning and walk to the public school nearest to their homes for their education. We will know this when communities protect, treasure and take part in activities of schools in their neighbourhood.

We will also know we are succeeding when all of us involved in public education wear with pride the beautiful flat-heeled shoes we are peddling.

Mosibudi Mangena

24/05/2001