Angie Motshekga doesn't know how many learners have textbooks
A reply to a DA parliamentary question has revealed that the Department of Basic Education has no mechanism in place to regularly monitor access to textbooks for all learners in South Africa.
I will write to the Chairperson of the Basic Education Portfolio Committee, Hope Malgas, requesting that she summon Minister Angie Mothsekga to Parliament to explain how she plans to monitor and improve access to textbooks for all schools and learners in South Africa.
In the parliamentary question, I asked Minister Mothsekga how her department determined the percentage of learners that had their own textbooks for each subject. She responded with statistics based on the findings of the Technical Report of the 2011 School Monitoring Survey, a report that only measures Grade 6's access to Mathematics and Language textbooks and to date, has not been made public.
If the assessment of textbook access in South Africa was last made in 2011, how does Minister Mothsekga know how many learners have textbooks today? Not one of her Department's Annual Reports for the last three financial years has been able to provide a measure of textbook penetration.
The fact is: Minister Motshekga simply does not know.
According to the reply, in 2011, the DA-led Western Cape led with 98% access to Mathematics textbooks. Overall 83% of Grade 6 learners had access to a Mathematics textbook. In Mpumalanga and the Free State less than 70% of Grade 6 learners had access to a Mathematics book. In Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and the Free State less than 70% of Grade 6 learners had access to a Language book.
The percentage across provinces ranged from a low 50% in the Free State to 98% in the Western Cape - which is the only province with guidelines in place to ensure that each learner has a textbook for every core subject in terms of the CAPS roll-out.
In 2012 the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) piloted the School Improvement Plan System (SIPS) - an online management tool that requires each principal to submit and update a set of school-based information that can be used for effective planning purposes. One of the valuable functions of the SIPS is the resources page, which allows the WCED to monitor and assess textbook and workbook procurement levels as well as whether these books are being used by schools.
Quality education - one that truly prepares a young person to become a productive global citizen - is considered to have certain core elements. One of those core elements is access, by every child, in every grade, and for every subject, to his or her own textbook.
The DA will not allow Minister Motshekga to sidestep her responsibility to our learners. The Department's failures have had a devastating effect on this country's development and the Minister's lack of visible commitment to departmental improvement and delivery cannot continue.
Statement issued by Annette Lovemore MP, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, April 15 2013
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