Minister Motshekga must admit failure

Note to Editors: This is an extract based on a speech delivered by DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Annette Lovemore MP, during today's debate on the Basic Education budget vote in Parliament.

Highlights:

• Only 35% of children who start school ever receive a Grade 12 certificate;
• More than 10,000 unqualified teachers are employed in our schools.
• SADTU has demanded - and the Department is about to agree to - no management requirements for appointment as a principal.
• SADTU immobilises almost any attempt to professionalise teaching and provide quality education.

Michelangelo is reported to have said, in the 1500s, "The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."

It is absolutely relevant to our discussion today.

In determining where our aim should be set, we first have to determine why we do what we do. 

Why is the right to basic education constitutionally enshrined? Why does the President refer to education as an apex priority?  Why do we all consider education fundamentally important?

Allow me to attempt to answer this very personally Minister.

My alma mater is Kimberley Girls' High School. Their mission statement is in the form of a short rhyme: 

We recognise each diverse soul,

And aim to educate the whole - 

That every girl, in every deed,

May think, discern, adapt, succeed. 

The school you chose for your daughters, Minister, is Parktown High School for Girls. The school proudly states:

"We have a vision of confident and courageous young women ready and willing to meet every challenge on the way to achieving their dreams."

A selection of mottos from our countries top schools will emphasise the point:

Kearsney College: "Carpe Diem"

Roedean School: "Inspiring a Life of Significance"

Leap Science and Maths Schools: "Educating Future Leaders"

All of South Africa's top schools focus squarely on WHY they educate. They start with their vision of the adults their efforts will produce. And so, Minister, should you.

When you do, you will quickly realise that this is not a tick box exercise for you or for any official of your Department. 

Anyone reading the Department's Annual Performance Plan would be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Nowhere does the reason for your existence and the reminder of your accountability to every child appear. There is a flagrant lack of commitment to producing courageous, confident and capable adults.

Before we consider your plan for this year, let us pause for a moment, and reflect on the current situation which can best be described as tragic.

• Only half of Grade 3 learners are literate;
• 13% of Grade 9 learners achieve a 50% pass mark in mathematics;
• The World Economic Forum ranks our Maths and Science education second last in the world;
• The International Mathematics and Science Study of 2012 ranks South Africa third last for mathematics; 
• The International Reading and Literacy Study of 2012 placed South Africa fourth last; 
• 20% of our schools have no or unreliable access to water;
• 79% of our schools have no library;
• 80% of teachers of the deaf are not fluent in sign language;
• 80% of teachers of the blind are unable to read Braille;
• We have one of the world's highest teacher absenteeism rate;
• 60% of Grade 6 teachers cannot pass tests their learners are expected to pass;
• Half of the children who start school never finish;
• Only 35% of children who start school ever receive a Grade 12 certificate;
• More than 10000 unqualified teachers are employed in our schools.

The achievement so often proudly touted - access to schooling for all our children - pales somewhat in significance when we consider the immense failure in ensuring access to quality education in our public schools.

Now, answer this Minister. Is it acceptable, in light of the current abominable situation in public education in this country, to take incremental steps towards improvement? 

The answer has to be a categorical no. 

We cannot afford another year of producing Grade 12 learners who predominantly have no connection with values and principles, who cannot make career decisions, who are not capable of tertiary study, who do not have the confidence or initiative to become entrepreneurs and who are considered unteachable by many prospective employers.

We need massive change. Massive in at least three senses:

• The change must be massive in that much must change; 
• The change must be massive in that it must be radical; and
• The change must be massive in that every one of the hundreds of thousands of children who need that change must feel that change.

Recall the earlier quote. "The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."

Setting the aim too low is exactly what your department has chosen to do Minister. Not taking any chances on being found wanting with respect to achievement of outcomes. Not making any commitments that might result in the boxes not being ticked.

The only meaningful target - and that is questionable - that has been left in this plan is the matric pass rate. And guess what, South Africa? The target is exactly what was achieved last year. 74%.

Every other target that might be used to measure the immediate effectiveness of the department has been removed. We have no targets for:

• The percentage of schools with a very basic level of infrastructure
• The percentage of schools having access to a library
• The percentage of learners with a textbook for each subject
• The number of learners who have received workbooks
• The percentage of Grade 3 learners performing at the required numeracy and literacy levels
• The percentage of Grade 6 and 9 learners performing at the required mathematics and language levels
• The number of Grade 12 learners passing mathematics or physical science
• The number of Grade 12 learners who become eligible for a Bachelor's programme at university

We are sincerely grateful to every school in South Africa, both independent and public, that understands why it is educating children. It is clear that the department needs, urgently, to support these schools, and to duplicate their efforts to benefit every child.

Independent and successful public schools understand the concept of accountability. They are accountable to their funders, whether they are sponsors or parents. If the schools fail to perform, fail to produce young adults who can utilise every opportunity to fulfil their potential, they lose their funding, and they cease to exist. The crises in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape demonstrate vividly the results of the collapse of accountability in the education system.

These schools understand the need for each child to discover their identity, their talents, their strengths and weaknesses. They understand the need to inculcate values and principles, the need for respect for others. They understand that children, especially those with learning difficulties, cannot develop to their full potential in the huge classes the department tolerates.

These schools understand that children cannot develop skills and talents without exposure to as wide a spectrum of resources as possible. They are the breeding grounds for the Chad le Clos or the Lindiwe Mazibukos of the future. They would never have to be instructed by a court to provide desks or textbooks or to fill teacher vacancies or to attend to unsafe structures. 

These schools understand the need for positive role models. Teachers are properly qualified, constantly developing and truly professional. The thought of employing unqualified teachers, of regularly absent teachers or of teachers using learners as pawns in political battles would be absurd. 

The work ethic in these schools is exceptional. Not something the department expects. It has yet to take action against those Eastern Cape teachers who were on strike for a full term last year.

I use this opportunity, Minister, to welcome the apparently amiable end to the SADTU work-to-rule campaign yesterday. Many matters raised by SADTU remains unaddressed, and, of course, the necessary action against SADTU's striking members that caused learners to lose out on learning hours still has to be taken. We will be monitoring developments carefully, as is our obligation and our wont.

Chairperson, successful independent and public schools have principals who are managers and visionary leaders. SADTU has demanded - and the Department is about to agree to - no management requirements for appointment as a principal.

These schools appoint on the basis of expertise, not on the basis of union affiliation. These schools understand that education is more about learning than it is about teaching.

These schools understand discipline and a culture of continuous learning. They do not teach to the tests, nor do they need to cram knowledge into winter or spring camps.

These schools form partnerships and networks with others from whom they can learn more. They form, for example, the Extraordinary Schools Coalition - a categorical statement of excellence if ever there was one. The Department depends on its largely dysfunctional district offices to provide support, but does not even have the political will to insist that subject advisors must be proven exceptional teachers. 

Minister, despite a budget of R17.6 billion and a slew of policies, your education system does not work. Admit failure.  Until you do, you will never make the massive changes that are required for this country to succeed.

Understand why you are educating; understand that education is the foundation for the future, for every child, and for this country.

Commit to success, and removing every obstacle to success. That will include SADTU. SADTU immobilises almost any attempt to professionalise teaching and provide quality education.

You are in charge Minister. You have to make that unconditionally clear. 

Massive change cannot happen overnight. But it cannot happen incrementally either. And it will never happen if we accept plans such as that presented for this year by your department.

I challenge you Minister to surround yourself with expertise and to publicly commit to realistic but challenging targets to change our education outcomes, to produce capable and courageous adults. 

I challenge you to gazette your commitments. Be bold. Call your policy SOUTH AFRICA'S PLAN FOR SUCCESSFUL EDUCATION. 

Minister, you cannot continue to fail our children and, directly, our nation.

"The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."

Issued by the DA, May 7 2013

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