
=====================================================================
Partnerships Conference
=====================================================================

Speeches and Media Releases
 Education

[         w

EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE MEC FOR EDUCATION : MR STONE SIZANI

ON THE OCCASION OF A PARTNERSHIPS CONFERENCE HOSTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

6 JUNE 2000



In my moment of reflection, whenever I think of the Eastern Cape Department of Education, I cannot help conjuring up in my mind, the image 
of the legendary phoenix, which is said to have risen from its ashes.

Officials of this department all have sad anecdotes of a time when, if they introduced themselves in all these National meetings that are 
held in Gauteng, there would be all these mischievous smiles on peoples faces, because they represented a Department where things just did 
not work. The budget crisis that beset us was on everyones lips.

It did seem at that stage, I am told, that Education in the Eastern Cape was a real disaster.

We have turned the corner ! We have moved from a situation where some 95% of our budget went to personnel costs, to one where we can say 
with confidence that we do have a budget for non  personnel expenditure. Yes we have been through rough seas, yes the confidence that our 
very constituency had on us as a Department was waning by the day. But here we are still.

There is a lot that has to be done in Education in this province. The resolve that is to be seen at all levels is one thing that gives us 
the confidence that we will get there. That resolve is to be seen among the corps of our teaching personnel, our Administrative staff and 
all our Managers. It seems to me, a newcomer of sorts in this department, that this is the right time to let the world out there hear us 
shout out our resolve to get things done in this province.

The resolve has seen us through a Strategic Planning exercise that has helped identify the route that we want to go. This has been a 
necessary exercise, for when one looks at the need in Education in this province, all will agree that everything is a priority, and that we 
may miss some of the most crucial activities if we do not have a route map !

We started in a situation where our learners shared classrooms with animals. However, the issue for us was not just the provision of 
classrooms, but in fact the whole issue of how the availability of such would then be the pivot for effective teaching and learning. This 
means that one of the first things that we had to agree was the matter of what it is that we consider to be our core business. For once we 
reached decisions on that then that would be the epicenter of our endevour teaching and learning.

A number of changes in our operation have come about in the last year or so, which changes have given us a new direction in our quest to 
provide a meaningful and relevant education in our province.

The first of these, which sets the context for us, is our move to reconfigure our levels of authority, to thin down the layers of the 
bureaucracy ! As we speak, we are in the process of disestablishing our Regional Offices, the latter having been the middle layer between 
Head Office and the districts. It is our strong belief, that if the district is the unit that is closest to the school, then that is where 
we need to concentrate our efforts and our resources. We have thus raised the status of the district to that of a Directorate, and will 
appoint a district Director to be in charge of each district. This decentralization will, in our view ensure efficiency in our efforts to 
support our schools. This decision entails thinning the Head Office layer as well.

Last year has seen us produce four plans that are critical to the new approach that we have adopted as a Department. These are :

* The Strategic Plan, a process which has helped us identify nine priority focus areas that should be our road  map
* A review of our Organizational structure in order to ensure a meaningful operation based on clear roles and responsibilities for all our 
personnel. This, we believe will lead to a more effective team of managers whose roles are well  defined.
* A Human Resource Development Plan, which ensures that we stay sensitive of the need to build capacity at all levels, and that this should 
be an ongoing exercise.
* A Service delivery plan that links our operation to the whole concept of Batho  Pele.

With these plans, it is our strong belief that the ground is now ready for us to fly as a department. Which then leads me to the whole 
issue of how we can all work together to achieve these goals that we have set for ourselves, the issue of partnerships, the business of 
todays gathering.

I would like to refer to as a series of levels of partnerships, for in my view, these relationships occur at different levels, and this 
will become clear as I proceed.

Our understanding of partnership is of a certain kind of relationship, which invariably implies a commitment for all the parties concerned, 
that come to join such a relationship. Partnership becomes the establishment and acceptance of a commitment for the one government, for 
example, to offer a specified service to another, provided that the recipient government can also make a commitment to make a success of 
such intervention, either through equivalent funding, or in kind, through, for instance the offer of Human Resources, or any other form of 
collaboration. I put special emphasis on commitment from the recipient government specifically because we have tended in the past, to 
assume that the responsibility for the success of such partnerships lay with the donor party only. If this were to be so, then we could 
never have had the opportunity to complain when things went awry because the donor agencies pursued agendas that were not our own.

The days of wholesale colonization of developing countries went with the erstwhile format of donor support, where the recipients were 
expected to accept donor agendas or face the risk of losing Donor support.With the demise of colonialism, the civilized world came to 
accept the fact that, the developing world also does have agendas of their own, simply because the capacity to evolve agendas for 
development is no monopoly for any country, either in the countries from the north or in our southern countries who have always and 
rightfully been identified as needing the assistance.The mistake that the colonialists always made was that of equating the need for 
assistance with a failure to grasp where the needs lay.

Such is not the basis of the kind of partnerships that we envisage. Rather our perception is one that is based on an equal partnership that 
says very clearly, that each partner has a clearly specified commitment and role.

Secondly, there is a sense in which one cycle of partnerships moves into other cycles of partnerships with other players in the Donor 
community. As such then, it has been important in moulding our relationships, to be mindful of the existence of other dimensions of 
partnerships that all speak to common objectives. Such partnerships are, for instance the partnerships that we have with the governments of 
the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, Japan, Luxembourg, Lower Saxony, the European Union, and, worthy of mention here as 
well, our partnerships with local industry and the whole private sector that is to be found from within our own country.

We have as a Department emphasized the need for all these interventions to be sensitive to the existence of the others at all times, for it 
is the same objectives of the department of Education that all purport to address ! In other words, it is collaboration and complimentarity 
that we are looking for, rather than competition and conflict.

It is for those reasons that we have tended to model, with some flexibility of course, our projects on our flagship project, Imbewu, the 
U.K.  funded intervention. Again I am using flagship advisedly, not in the competitive sense, but in the sense that it was the first of 
our Donor funded projects, and is still the largest. The other projects came later, but it would have been an error on our part to have 
allowed subsequent programmes to have started from scratch to reinvent the wheel while the forerunner had traversed the same territory 
and had helped clear the ground of all obstacles.

Thus the starting point for these projects has been our focus as a Department on five intended outputs, all happening in basic education as 
a starting premise. These were :

* Transforming our capacity for policy development, planning and budgeting
* Improving management capacity and the performance of our school principals
* Improving the quality of teaching and learning
* Improving the quality and availability of appropriate teaching and learning materials
* Enhancing community involvement in schooling

We have encouraged projects to look at these outputs as a basis from which to drive their interventions and for us all to deliberate on a 
common approach that enhances the whole operation of our department.

It is a fact that we could never, as government, have hoped to achieve our goals single  handedly. Hence this web of partnerships is so 
vital to us, it is our lifeline.

Recently, our department has engaged in a Strategic Planning exercise, because we recognized the need to reprioritize, especially in the 
preparation of our new five  year strategy. It is interesting to note that, there are curious overlaps between our initial outputs as 
listed above, and our more recent Strategic Focus Areas. We have now identified nine such focus areas, and it is our hope that our partners 
in Education will internalize these, and work with us to achieve our aspirations for Education in this province. The areas are :

* Building an effective General Education System by focussing on Teaching and Learning in Schools
* Establishing an effective Further Education and training System which is responsive to Economic and Labour market needs.
* Promoting Self managing schools that are centres of community life
* The provision of Physical Infrastructure that is both adequate and appropriate
* Providing an Education system that is well prepared to meet the Social and Economic Challenges
* Promoting integrated and lifelong In  service Training and Professional development of Educators, Managers and Administrators
* The transformation of Management systems and processes
* Providing local management support to institutions, and
* Organizing and mobilizing our Resources effectively and efficiently.

We are not by any means suggesting that all these can and will be achieved, overnight. They do, however, serve as beacons to guide our 
operation, so that we all have a road  map that tells us even when we go off  track. For as long as this can become a collaborative 
effort between us and the international donor community on the one hand, and between and among the Donor communities out there on the 
other, so that each one can say that this is their little contribution which can be added to that other contribution to make the desired 
impact, that much shall we be satisfied.

One other important mechanism that we have looked at, if only for purposes of expediting the implementation of our goals, is the 
establishment of an Eastern Cape Education Development Trust. The Trust is the result of collaborative efforts with local industry.We are 
still inviting as many players as are possible to join in the Trust. It is to be appreciated that this was at the initiative of our local 
partners in industry, who have suddenly woken up to the realization that Education cannot be the responsibility of government alone. For 
what do we educate for, if not for our industries to flourish. The extent to which our Education system is a failure, that much will our 
industry fail. This is especially so in the emerging debates in Education in this country, where Further Education and Training Systems are 
beginning to take the centre stage. Our ability then to talk with industry in identifying needs and common goals, will spell our success in 
providing a brighter future, not only for individuals, but also for the health of the local economy. This then extends the fold of the 
partnerships from Government to government levels, to government to industry, and included as well, all other willing participants from the 
non-  government sector as well.

In conclusion then the success the of the partnerships that we are about here can only be measured by the extent to which the impact of 
effective learning and teaching is felt by the private sector out there. That impact will manifest itself in the alleviation of poverty in 
our communities generally, and more specifically in more families in our province having the capacity and the means to cross the poverty  
datum line, and be seen to be living well above that. That will be our rate of return, i.e. Our peoples ability to earn more and live a 
more fulfilling life, relative to all the time, money and effort that we have put collectively into education.

The Jomtien Conference of 1990 put the alleviation of world poverty through the eradication of illiteracy as a target for 2000. However, a 
recent report by Oxfam, suggests that at the moment 125 million children around the world are not attending school. A rough estimate would, 
without any doubt, put a large percentage of those children in South Africa, and still a larger percentage in Africa more broadly. The 
target that the world had set was that by 2015 we (the world) would be able to achieve the target of universal primary education. That is a 
tall order, which we are not likely to achieve. However, it is a goal that it is healthy to aspire for ! The Northern Hemisphere could very 
easily achieve this target. However, we do think that the north has come to realize that, if no attempts are made to salvage the south, 
they themselves risk sleepless nights, for they cannot sleep while their neighbour cries from hunger pangs all the night through.

The Oxfam report goes further to say that, if we do not meet the target by 2015, then we are condemning one quarter of the next generation 
in developing countries to have no chance for economic development.

We cannot afford to deny our children the basic right to an education, especially, as the statistics will show, girl children who come from 
rural communities. There is a pressing need for us to keep conscious of the connections between the education statistics and global 
realities of debt, structural adjustment, foreign aid priorities and the way our developing countries spend our budgets. All these send an 
indictment through that says, for instance, how much money does the developing world spend on the servicing of debts, on armaments, on 
transport and related industry, all seen against education budgets. In other words, we do concede, as the recipients of International Donor 
Assistance, that there is a sense in which we also have a greater responsibility to look after ourselves as well.

As a parting sentiment, we should all be mindful of a comment made by a Canadian journalist earlier this year, for it is a significant 
statement or even an indictment for the turn of the century. This mans observation is :

When it comes to achieving universal primary education, the international community has continually moved the goalposts.

In the early 1960s, the heady early days of post  colonialism, developing country governments meeting at regional conferences set 1980 as 
the target for universal primary education.

At a 1990 conference in Jomtien, Thailand, 155 governments agreed to the goal of basic education for all by 2000.

Five years later in Copenhagen, 185 governments (including 117 heads of state) set 2015 as the target date for universal primary education

The Universal Declaration of human Rights first said everyone has the right to an education back in 1948.Is this a challenge to all of us 
who claim a stake in the exercise of eradicating world poverty ? Is someone out there throwing the gauntlet at us to move or face the risk 
of unsound economies the world over, if we do not accelerate the pace of development in the southern hemisphere? Those are questions that 
speak to the need to strengthen our partnerships and to build mechanisms for testing their impact on the ground! Again a tall order!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Home | About the Eastern Cape | Documents
 Economy | Structures | International Relations | Links
 Premier's Office | Speeches & Media Releases
 Top of Page

---------------------------------------------------------------------

About the Eastern Cape

Premier's Office

Structures

Documents

Speeches & Media Releases

International Relations

Economy

Links


