2008/09 Budget and Policy Speech by Hon. Mr. Jonny Makgato MPL., Member of the Executive Council for Education, Province of the Eastern Cape Legislature, Bisho, 11 March 2008

Madam Speaker and Deputy Speaker
Honourable Premier
Honourable Members of the Executive Council
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature
Distinguished Guests
Superintendent General and senior management of the Eastern Cape Department of Education

Introduction

Madam Speaker, the year 2007/08 has been an interesting one, both in the Province and in the country as a whole. Education as a people driven service delivery sector has been declared by ruling party in government, as a priority for the next five years.  The year has been characterized by intensive invigoration of new policies that are meant to propel our Education System in a new direction. Madam Speaker, this has been also characterized by continuous engagement of our social partners in creating a common vision and strategy on Education policy implementation and resourcing. It is true that the resources at our disposals are incremental through the MTEF period, but the depth of scars created by the apartheid era still require a massive resources injection.

The past twelve years has witnessed remarkable efforts of the new democratic government, in a concerted endeavour to transform Education, and to provide access for all to quality Education within a unitary and non racial national system. For reasons that are provincial in character, the Department of Education in the Eastern Cape has not performed to the bare minimum national threshold, and not in sync with national performance targets. This is further demonstrated by our Grade 12s performance for the 2007 academic year, where we experienced a drop from 59% to 56.9%.

I want to hasten to indicate, Madam Speaker, that the labour relations environment in the Department of Education has become a sore point that has sometimes threatened to derail consistent services delivery in education.

With those few points Madam Speaker, I am summarizing the education environment under which resources allocated are utilized. As I continue with the speech, I will reflect on positives and achievements as planned.

Overview of Departmental Performance

The core responsibility of the Department is the provision of quality education and training to develop the human capital and resources of the Eastern Cape. This has been translated into an annual performance plan with programmes and projects. It is important Madam Speaker, to indicate upfront that the resources allocated to the Department of Education were utilized with a particular bias for high impact areas in education service delivery.

It is also true that in the course of utilizing such resources; the Auditor General has identified areas which require intensive improvement. The Department of Education has been characterized by under expenditure. Amongst other identified reasons is the link between procurement planning, cash flow projecting, and expenditure management. Corrective measures have been put in place for the 2008/09 financial year.

During the 2007/08 Policy Speech in this House, we committed ourselves to create order and to strive to have a positive impact in the lives of the young generation in education.

For the Department of Education to continue to implement nation policy, an effective service delivery model has been established with an intention to strengthen the executive management and leadership at Head Office. This can be attested by the creation of two (2) additional executive posts, bringing the number of Deputy Directors General at Head Office to four (4).  In this regard, adverts are already out, and the intention is for assumption of duty early in the first quarter. This has been coupled with the elevation of Mathematics Science and Technology to Chief Directorate status, confirming it as a national priority that has elicited a mention in all critical governing party and cabinet lekgotlas.

To ensure that the Department assumes credible fiscal prudence and sound financial discipline, we need to review and strengthen the Chief Financial Officer’s role with competent and requisite skills set: In this regard we propose that the functions of financial accounting and general expenditure and payroll management would need to be coordinated and accounted for at the level of Chief Directors who are well skilled, with effect from April 2008. The current organisational structure is unable to mitigate on challenges facing the performance of the CFO Branch.

A number of service delivery areas in 2007/08 have shown great improvement without negating inherent challenges faced. These include our endeavour to improve school attendance, performance and achievement of learning outcomes by our young generation.

The Department of Education has been engaged in delivering a School Nutrition Programme for 1 342 million learners utilising a total budget of R394 Million. Madam Speaker, I must acknowledge that a number of challenges have been sporadically encountered in the course of implementing this programme. I am glad to say though that, with a new team at the helm, and with improvement in coordination as a result of a staff overhaul in the form of 69 additional SNP post filled during the course of this financial year, the status quo has improved significantly.

New challenges of distances travelled by learner have posed risks in terms of school safety, attendance and achievement of learning outcomes. The provision of scholar transport has been expanded to include and service more routes in all our 23 districts.

It is a fact that most of our schools, in particular those located in the rural areas are still adversely affected by the ravages of poverty, hence the establishment of “no fee” schools. All schools in Quintile 1 and Quintile 2 were awarded “no fee” status, even though still with less than the minimum national threshold. This is going to be corrected in the new financial year.

The infrastructure backlogs have been costed and an intervention plan to deal with mud structures and unsafe schools has been developed. In the course of my speech I will outline plan and progress made to date.

The declaration of Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) and Early Childhood Development (ECD) as key priorities by government has been extensively addressed and progress to date has been very encouraging.

Madam Speaker, the Department of Education is characterized by commendable pockets of excellence, which we plan to consolidate in 2008/09, thereby enabling a seamless organization from head office to districts and schools.

PROGRAMMES & PROJECTS – 2008/09

A. Organizational Development and Design

The Department of Education has complied with legislative instruction that services should be decentralized closer to communities, which happens to be schools in our case. We have engaged in the redefinition of roles and responsibilities of head office, district and local levels. This initiative has led to the realignment of boundaries, in line with local government boundaries.  We are busy reviewing demarcation of our districts in line with the six (6) District Municipal boundaries including the Metro. This process will be incrementally implemented in 2008/09 with revised operations for all levels. The ultimate intention of the process is to locate education within the broader government integrated service delivery environment, across all tiers of government.

As indicated earlier, the Department of Education has addressed challenges of leadership and management by advertising four Deputy Directors General posts, which will go a long way in enhancing the size and shape of our organizational performance. The incumbents are expected to assume duty in the first quarter of the 2008/09 financial year.

It is also true that organizational design poses new challenges which entreat us to review the organogram, to speak to the priorities and vision of Department of Education. This review will be done incrementally through the MTEF process.

Madam Speaker, the school spatial distribution of the province is characterized by 781 Schools with less than 100 learners and this poses a serious threat to provisioning of resources and schools’ viability and effectiveness. The process of school structure organization and rationalization will commence intensively in 2008/09 with its implications dealt with in consultation with the affected communities.

B. Educational Resourcing

B. 1 School Nutrition Program
Madam Speaker, the school Nutrition Programme has had its fair share of challenges.  However, since we put measures in place to improve our financial systems and procurement processes the programme has improved significantly. As the program is largely funded from conditional grant, in 2007/08, 1.265 learners have been fed at a cost of R1.50 per learner with a total amount of R237 885 million .The Department has committed herself to increase the conditional grant allocation of R 339 million with an amount of R54 million  to benefit all learners in Q1 ,Q2 and Q3 in Grade R-7 with the intention of including all quintiles and selected senior secondary schools in 2009/10. The number to be fed in 2008/09 will increase from 1,265 million learners to 1.342 million at a cost of R1.50 per learners.  This is a significant improvement from the 948 574 learners who benefited in 2006/07, when the programme only included Grade 1 – 7, again including all farm learners.  This programme will   be reviewed during the course of the year to decentralise to local communities and schools. This will include establishment of school gardens in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health for nutrition education, and the Department of Economic Development for entrepreneurial development of local communities.     

B.1 Scholar Transport

The Department of Education is determined to accelerate improvements geared towards school functionality and achievement of learning outcomes. It has been identified that amongst other factors hindering learner performance are the distances travelled by the learners to and from school daily.  Our Scholar Transport policy obliges us to provide transportation for all learners residing 2.5 km (grades R – 3) and 5km (grades 4 – 12) respectively away from their nearest appropriate school. This benefit has been historically enjoyed by few and largely in the west of the province.  The increased resources for 2008/09 will address increased participation of historically disadvantaged learners and districts which happened to be concentrated in the East of the Province. 

I must hasten to announce that for 2008/09 we are increasing participation of districts and schools in scholar transport provisioning to benefit An increase from 77696 to 115 000 learners in 2008/09. This will translate to an increase from 1533 to 2632 routes with benefiting schools increasing from 732 to 928. The amount budgeted for this programme will be increasing from R46, 165 million to R250, 987million in the new financial year which translates to almost 200%. It is true Madam Speaker that this program has faced problems of understaffing which led to its underperformance to meet obligations of prompt payment of service providers. All districts will be staffed in 2008/09 which facilitates payment services rendered in time. Madam Speaker, it has become important that there must be collaboration with Department of Transport to address provision of access roads and compliance with road traffic requirements as hindrance to better service delivery.

B.2 “No Fee” Schools

Madam Speaker, our commitment to create better access to education has been reinforced with the introduction of “no fee” schools, with a breakdown into quintiles in line with poverty levels and other policies. Subsequent to that momentous declaration, all quintile 1 and 2 schools were declared as “no fee’ schools. For 2008/09, we are committing ourselves to increase learner per capital funding in Q1 and Q2 from the previous R554 allocated in 2007/08 to R775 and R711 respectively in line with national threshold, in 3 688 schools, to be accessed for 1.250 million learners. The obligation to meet the national threshold will be incrementally implemented to include Q3 to Q5 in 2009/10.

It is true Madam Speaker that challenges of quintile allocation of schools needs to be revisited as some deserving schools are unplaced and thus miss out on this important benefit. A process to redefine the criteria for Quintile allocation is under review for 2008/09 as to reduce contestations from the communities. This commitment has been shown by inclusion of the 80 schools that contested their placement in 2007 and subsequently placed in the correct quintiles. Our intention is to improve school procurement processes, including delegations to districts so as to fast-track resource provisioning and spending.

B.3 Learner & Teacher Support Materials (LTSM)

The definition of learner & teacher support materials has been broadened to include the following categories:

• School Furniture
• Information Communication Technology
• Stationery and Textbooks
• Consumables & non consumables

B.3.1 School Furniture Provisioning

Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge the challenges faced by schools in terms of school furniture provisioning. The Department of Education has been contending with litigious service providers, and this has resulted in prolonged legal wrangling, which in turn has derailed school furniture provisioning. For 2007/08 an amount of R56 million has been allocated to procure school furniture and tenders awarded. Delivery has already started to schools. For 2008/09 a further amount of R46 million?? will be allocated for school furniture provisioning. It is our commitment to this House that learners will have a desk to sit on , learn and succeed at the end. Other initiatives to provide school furniture will be implemented. These include partnerships with 3 FET Colleges: Lovedale, King Hintsa and Ikhala which will be funded to implement school furniture refurbishment projects in collaboration with the Eastern Cape Youth Commission and other partners. Further partnerships are bearing fruits in the area of Alice and Fort Beaufort with international donations on furniture

B.3.2 Information Communication Technology

The technology revolution has become necessity to enhance teaching and learning irrespective of socio economic status. The introduction of e-Education has become our imperative to provide both content and infrastructure for computer based teaching and learning. For the year 2007/08 ……schools have been provided with computers at a cost of R25 million.  For 2008/09 an amount of R…………million has been provided to provide (no of) …schools with computers and software. It has become important to establish collaboration with business partners in IT to support such initiatives. Madam Speaker, it is my belief that our technology environment should be made ready so as to prepare our learners to compete in the labour market.

B.3.3 Stationery & Textbooks

Madam Speaker, stationery and textbooks form a fundamental resource for effective teaching and learning. It is my belief that for any classroom to effectively produce competent learners, reading and writing becomes a core competency which may be derived from use of textbooks and stationery provisioning. In order to succeed in delivering such resources in time, the LTSM cycle should be projectized. I want this house to acknowledge the improvements achieved in delivery and distribution to all our schools. All our schools with Grade 12 received their books by end of December 2007. A few challenges were faced in the delivery of stationery in some of our districts, and legal action has been taken against incompetent service providers and a substitute provider was immediately appointed to finish up LTSM delivery. Madam Speaker, these are initiatives to meet our obligation to provide for effective teaching and learning in time. For 2008/9 LTSM allocation has will increase from R447 million to R660 588 in order to provide all learners with textbooks and stationery before the opening of schools in 2009. For the first time in 2008/09 our learners in Grade R to 3   will be provided with the full complement of resources in order to meet their obligations as foundation for successful learning and teaching. I want to raise our concern Madam Speaker that our provincial resources for stationery and textbooks are always taken out of the province as a result of absence of such manufacturers in the province. The province must develop mechanisms to reduce the flight of our resources to other provinces as part of our local economic development

C. HUMAN RESOURCE PROVISIONING

The provisioning of human resources in the Eastern Cape Department of Education has been over the years characterized by disagreement with some educator unions including SADTU particularly and the number of educator posts to be declared. Madam Speaker, the House must note that the matter of post provisioning is only a consultative process with stakeholders and with necessarily negotiable, which poses a challenge to both the Department of Education and Labour. Intensive consultation has been undertaken engage with all our social partners. A number of presentations have been made to the cabinet to allocate extra funding of which Madam Speaker we are thankful for such generosity and commitment. Amongst the  challenges to be resolved by HR provisioning for our schools include reduction of administrative workload to educators, stabilizing  educator status for efficiency and  effectiveness and finally to respond to requirements of NCS and new policies priorities in education.

• Dealing with Temporary Educators: The education system in the Province has been characterised by consistent employment of temporary educators due to disagreement with the unions on how to distribute educators in with the principle of equity in education. This has subjected teaching to new pressure as these temporary educators would move from one school to the other after the end of their contract. For such years of not declaring post in the province, employment status of educators has been unstable and “casualised”. The changing curriculum has become a challenge to the newly uncertain temporary educators as they have not been trained on the new curriculum. For 2008/09, our resource allocation intends to respond to the challenges and stability of employment status as to guarantee job security, job satisfaction and performance of our educators in the classroom. To achieve stability, 3717 temporary educator posts will be converted into permanent teaching posts through a bulletin leading to an increase from 60…. To 62593 educator post for schools with GradeR-12. The importance of such provision will be to stabilize and build teacher confidence to all those who have temporary for some years.

• Maths and Science Teaching:  The country has declared Mathematics and Science as a priority for all learners. This has been translated to make these subjects to be compulsory for all schools.  It is also important, Madam Speaker to indicate suffering of our children in these subject as result of shortage of teacher in the country as whole. The initiative to recruit foreign educators while we are training internally will be tested in 2008/09. To achieve these priorities, 932 additional posts are provided for Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy and 697 additional posts for Sciences will be provided for 2008/9. These will be utilised to address curriculum transformation in our schools as demanded by National Curriculum Statements.
• Early Childhood Development: The implementation of white paper 5 instructs us to establish and include Grade R to formal schooling. 4238 ECD practitioners will be provided with an increase of stipend from R1 500-R3 200 a month. It is further important Madam Speaker that the amount R……….. is allocated for implementation of  pre – Grade R. The stand alone sites are in the process of being phased out in order to attach them as per white papers 383 ECD posts will also be allocated to support stand alone ECD sites in the province.

• Inclusive Education: White paper 6 for inclusive education dictates that learners with barriers to learning and development should be prioritized by providing support staff e.g. psychologist, therapists, nurses etc. To achieve such priority, 150 posts will be allocated to support inclusive education.

• Adult Basic Education: The PGDP dictates that the rate illiteracy should be halved by 2014. It is the responsibility of our department to support and provide such service for our communities. To achieve the dictate of PGDP, in 2008/09, 294 Abet Centres with 3747 posts will be provided across the province. It is also important to note Madam Speaker that the launch of 1035 satellites for Provincial Literacy Programme demands 207 supervisors which have been provided for 2008/9.
• Administrative Support: To make sure that our educators concentrate to classroom based activities and practises administrative duties must be relieved from them. This process has begun by employing ……..administrative support staff which will be increased by 2151 non teaching staff in 2008/09., and this will be provided in to all schools incrementally. This will translate into at least one admin support staff per school and will be incrementally improved.
• Lastly 112 subject advisors posts will be provided in support of school performance in particular subject / learning areas.

Madam Speaker, I want to indicate to the House that 2008/09 is the year of creating employment for our communities in support of educational priorities. Therefore, for 2008/09, I want to declare a total post basket of 73326 educator posts, and …..non- educator posts as broken down above.  The overall financial implication for providing educators in schools in 2008 will thus become R11 631 007 901, inclusive of ECD practitioners and ABET tutors. Madam Speaker, I want to indicate in this House our commitment to improve labour relations in this province particularly between the Department and teacher unions. The process of resuscitating the Provincial Labour Relations Council (PELRC) is high on our agenda.

We have further identified challenges faced by school managers to lead school to achieve the education outcomes and their training is a priority in 2008/09 hence we have established an Education Leadership Institute.

D. Rehabilitating Educational Infrastructure
The school infrastructure program faced a number of challenges in 2007/08 which required the Department to intervene drastically to resolve such challenges. Amongst those challenges, was to institute a forensic investigation on how the program is responding to the provincial infrastructure resource needs of our learners. A number of partners have come together to respond to such needs including the Hon Premier     Mrs. Nosimo Balindlela, Department of Public Works, Implementing Agent like IDT etc. The historical backlogs have come to haunt this program as the resources at our disposal including capacity to deliver create some challenges on spending. The school infrastructure profile is characterised by lack of classrooms, dilapidated classrooms, absent or inadequate water and sanitation, absent or inadequate administrative blocks, no libraries and no laboratories. In the context of safe schooling, all schools that are mud schools have been declared as unsafe schools and require to be replaced in 2008/09. Therefore 452 mud schools will be replaced in 2008/9 including 150 schools affected by the disasters. In the short term, the Department’s Mud Structure Eradication endeavour will result in the building of:

• 60 conventional structures and new model schools,
• 51 Extended Public Works Programme initiative schools, which is in line with the PGDP
• 100 new Early Childhood Development centres attached to existing schools
• 57 schools to be provided with Emergency classrooms
• 57 schools to be provided with water, sanitation and security fencing
• 200 schools will also get proper palisade fencing, and
• 150 disaster schools will receive remedial assistance

.  The intense infrastructure development in the country has drained human resource expertise and thus poses a challenge to the capacity to manage school building projects.  This House must develop mechanisms to increase human capital capacity with expertise to compete with infrastructure demands.

The FET Colleges will continue with their massive recapitalisation programme that is currently spearheading construction and renovation at all eight (8) Colleges in the Province budgeted at R78 815 000 for the 2008/09 financial year.

E. BUDGET ALLOCATION

Finally, to recap, I want to emphasise that, among the plethora of priorities mentioned, for the year 2008/09, I commit myself and the Department to the following to added interrogation and pursuit of excellence in the following key areas:

• District Development and Performance – In continuing to decentralise critical service delivery functions, our Districts will be recipients of even more intensive and targeted assistance from the Department
• Creation of Sound Labour  Relations – I am convinced that, given the serious issues that our Department has to continue grappling with, sound labour relations is one of the non-negotiable starting points that has to be realised. I hope our partners in this regard will indulge us with a considered and pragmatic approach to common areas of interaction.
• Infrastructure & Resourcing of our Schools – As already indicated, our approach to this matter has already radicalised, we will continue to pursue any other lateral approach we deem necessary in order to finally eliminate this contentious aspect of our mandate.

Conclusion

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the British government’s Department for International Development (DFID) for their contribution to our comprehensive transformation endeavour through the Imbewu Project, which was concluded at the end of last year.  Their input and commitment has been invaluable in the Department’s continuing refinement of the education model best suited to respond to the current global environment.  In the same breath, I want to recognize the role of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) for their assistance in the form of the Intsika Project which has been running in Dutywa, Grahamstown and King William’s town.  They have been our partners in strengthening the work done in our districts, which is the primary point of service delivery of our core mandate.  The Integrated Education Project (IEP) sponsored by the USAID has played just as crucial a role as Intsika, in helping us to redefine the key messages to be derived from our education system.

Importantly as well, I thank ESKOM and IMPLATS for their invaluable assistance with our challenging educational infrastructure enterprise, in particular in the Eastern part of our Province.  They have made the work of our implementing agencies, IDT, Amatola Water, and Coega Development Corporation, that much more compelling in the face of immense odds.  Coega’s Extended Public Works Programme for the Department further deserves a special mention for winning the Bignews Enterprise Development Award, which was acknowledged as setting a national benchmark and best practice for that type of government development. 

Even more importantly, I want to extend our heartfelt kudos to our Honourable Premier, Mrs. Nosimo Balindlela for continuing and unwavering support for the Department.  Her commitment to our cause has been further demonstrated by her elevation of the school infrastructure initiative into a special project with a dedicated team of officials based in her office.  The province is soon to reap the rewards through a more robust and radical assault on the school mud structures that can still be found in Transkei.

I want to acknowledge and thank all the members of the Executive Council; it is through their support and counsel that I have been able to weather the storms of my first year at the helm of the Education portfolio.  I extend the same compliment to members of the legislature’s Education Portfolio Committee; their robust insightful oversight has kept us on our toes and ensured that we do not lose sight of our fundamental service delivery objective. 

Looking inward, I want to thank our hard-working Superintendent General, Ms. Nomlamli Mahanjana, her inspirational leadership and partnership has shaken our organisation to the core and has thus helped in setting us on the high road to lasting transformation. It is the same with our Senior Management Service members, they have all responded gallantly to our all consuming agenda.

Finally I want to thank my family for their unwavering support through thick and thin, their insights have, as always, assisted in putting everything in its proper perspective.

Thank you.