A turnaround strategy for education has been announced
MEC for Education Mandla Makupula says that tough choices have been made to improve the quality of education in the province.
Despite several challenges the Department of Education in the Eastern Cape is on course and we are in charge of policy implementation and adherence to national norms and standards for properly functioning schooling in this province, as far as possible. In the remaining years of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, we intend to work hard on stabilising our education system.
In the 2010/11 financial year and the first quarter of the 2011 academic year, we have had to take very painful decisions. They were taken in absolute good faith and in the best interests of ensuring that we sustain the provision of education services.
In January 2011, we convened the biggest gathering of education management to develop a change path for the department in light of our major challenges. We took the extraordinary step to invite organised labour to participate. Subsequently, we adopted a turnaround strategy and followed this up with a detailed turnaround implementation plan, to normalise the education system in our province.
We remain committed to the non-negotiables in education: teachers must be in school, in class, on time, teaching for at least seven hours a day; provision of textbooks and all materials on the first day of school; and provision of the necessary support and improvement of the infrastructure in support of quality learning and teaching.
Working with our social partners in education, we have aligned the national Learner Attainment Improvement Strategy (LAIS) to address our conditions as a province and this will be the guide to quality learning and teaching in schools.
The Eastern Cape has recorded a significant improvement in Grade 12 performance from 51% in 2009 to 58.3% in 2010, which represents a 7.3% increase. Despite this improvement, the province is still performing below the national average, which suggests that there is still room for improvement.
The number of candidates qualifying for admission to a Bachelor degree increased from 13.9% in 2009 to 15.9% in 2010, diploma courses increased from 20.4% to 23.8% and for Higher Certificate increased from 16.5% to 18.4% in 2010. The improvement in both quantity and quality of our results is testimony to the impact of our focused LAIS interventions.
While this positive trend is commendable, more could be done to ensure equity in educational achievement in the province. Continued implementation of the LAIS will be key in addressing learner performance in our schools in 2011 and beyond.
Vocational education being introduced
MEC for Education Mandla Makupula welcomes a renewed focus on
relevant training through FET colleges.
The introduction of the Action Plan to 2014: Towards the realisation of Schooling 2025 has been met with excitement as it reasserts this administration’s commitment to the value of long-term planning and rigorous examination of all the factors that underpin continued underperformance at all levels of our education system.
The department has committed itself to improving the quality of teaching and learning in all FET colleges through the development of a Learner Attainment Improvement Strategy and establishing the FET College Examination Board.
The transformation agenda of FET colleges will seek to address challenges of the unemployment rate affecting young people in the province. College lecturers will also be trained in scarce skills areas. The twinning agreement that the department has with Lower Saxony will be extensively exploited for this purpose.
Expenditure in this sphere experienced exponential growth from the 2007/08 to 2010/11 financial year. This growth is projected to continue over the 2011/12 MTEF period for the implementation of the FET Act, which has necessitated that the further education and training colleges introduce new programmes (New Certificate Vocational), while still continuing their responsibilities to the currently enrolled learners, until such time that these students complete their courses in terms of the NATED curriculum.
The budget for the FET sector has been shifted from equitable share and has been ring-fenced as a conditional grant so as to prepare for the movement of the sector into Higher Education in the near future. Relevant training for the province’s teachers is another vital component of the department’s mandate.
A primary focus in 2011 will be the training of all Foundation Phase and Grade 10 teachers to be able to implement the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) in 2012. This project has targeted 21 000 Foundation Phase and 12 335 FET teachers.
In the FET band, content-gap training concentrates on Mathematics, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Accounting and Geography. There is a targeted programme involving the under-performing schools. There is also specialised training for all English First Additional Language (FAL) teachers that focus on Literature, as well as specialised technical subject training focusing on Civil Technology, Electrical Technology, Mechanical Technology and Engineering Graphics and Design.
A partnership has been formed with ETDP SETA to fund training of teachers on a Mathematics short course, provided by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and training of selected principals in an Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) in School Leadership and Management.
Overall the amount set aside for all teacher development programmes is R107-million provided for under the Skills Levy.
