Speech by Gavin Davis, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, Department of Basic Education Budget Vote Debate, Tuesday 10 May 2015

The Return of Bantu Education?

Honourable Chairperson,

Let me begin by offering our thoughts to the children of Vuwani in Limpopo, where 24 schools were burned to the ground last week.

Whichever way you look at it, these acts of vandalism have set us back in our task of redressing the legacy of unequal education in our country.

Today, I want to focus on this legacy of inequality, starting with the very root of it.

In 1953, Hendrik Verwoerd introduced the reprehensible policy of Bantu Education. This policy limited the educational opportunities of black South Africans to ensure a steady supply of unskilled and semi-skilled labour.

Thirteen years later, in this very Chamber, Verwoerd was stabbed to death by one of the parliamentary service officers.

The only thing tragic about that day was that Verwoerd’s policies didn’t die with him.

Indeed, Verwoerd’s ghost haunts us here in this Chamber today.

Because, if you are a poor, black child, your chances of getting a decent education in a democratic South Africa are still very remote.

And the uncomfortable truth, Honourable Chairperson, is that the gap in our education system is getting wider.

Just look at the facts.

In schools in the most affluent areas (‘quintile 5’ schools), the matric pass rate has remained steady at above 90% over the past three years.

But in schools in the poorest areas, (‘quintile one’ schools), the matric pass rate has dropped from 70.3% to 61.6% in the last three years.

In these schools, the physical science pass rate has dropped from 60.5% to 49.9%. The mathematics pass rate has dropped from 48.6% to 36.9%.

What is going wrong?

It is not a question of funding. The Basic Education Budget stands at R219 billion – almost one-fifth of the total national budget.

And, quite correctly, the state spends six times more on learners in poor areas than learners in more affluent areas.

So how is that, two decades into our democracy, poor black children are falling behind?

The answer lies in the quantity and quality of teaching.

The truth is that, for every excellent and dedicated teacher in a disadvantaged school, there are many more who can’t teach and many more who won’t teach.

And this problem will not go away until we break the SADTU protection racket that shields under-performing teachers from accountability.

In this regard, we welcome the Minister’s plan to licence and professionalise teaching.

SADTU will no doubt try and block this proposal. We hope that Minister Motshekga has the courage to follow through with it.

In this regard, we are disappointed that, on Friday, the Minister buckled under SADTU pressure and postponed the release of the ‘Jobs for Cash’ report yet again.

If it ever sees the light of day, the ‘Jobs for Cash’ report will show that SADTU has captured six out of nine provincial education departments.

We trust that Minister Motshekga’s failure to release the report does not mean that she has been captured by SADTU as well.

Honourable Chairperson,

Today Minister Motshekga mentioned her Department’s proposal for a ‘three-tier’ system made up of an academic stream, a technical stream and an occupational stream.

In principle, the DA supports the introduction of technical and occupational streams for learners who do not have the aptitude for the traditional academic stream.

We must be wary, however, of the target to offer 60% of all learners occupational subjects like hairdressing, beauty care, nail technology, upholstery and bricklaying by 2030.

Because weak schools will be under pressure to push failing learners into the occupational stream – even if these learners could have coped in an academic stream had they received better schooling.

Take Kwabhamu Junior Secondary in Zululand, for example, one of the twenty-two schools that obtained a zero percent pass rate in the matric exams last year.

The thirty-seven matric learners at this school didn’t fail because they were in the wrong stream. They failed because the school system failed them.

Honourable Chairperson, the policy of Bantu Education was reprehensible because it limited the educational opportunities of poor, black learners. We must make sure that the ‘three-stream’ approach does not do the same.

On that note, we would also like to warn Minister Motshekga against taking another retrograde step. And that is the dilution of School Governing Body powers as contemplated in the Draft Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill.

School Governing Bodies give communities a voice in how schools are run. They are the difference between a public school system in a democracy, and a state school system in an authoritarian regime such as Apartheid.

Honourable Chairperson, we cannot redress the legacy of the past by mimicking the past.

We must guard against the return of Bantu Education. And we must never go back to the state school system of the Apartheid era.

The only way to exorcise Verwoerd’s ghost is by improving the quality and quantity of teaching in disadvantaged schools.

So let us move forward with boldness and courage. Let us break SADTU’s stranglehold on our public education system, so that every child is given a chance to succeed.

I thank you.

Issued by the DA, 10 May 2016