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Policy and Budget Speech for Department of Education
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Education

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 EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
 POLICY AND BUDGET  SPEECH  2001/2002
 FOR TH DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
BY MEC STONE SIZANI
14 MARCH 2001



INTRODUCTION

Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker
 Honourable Premier
 Honourable Members of the House
 Invited Guests
 Officials of the Department
 Members of the Media
 Ladies and Gentlemen

Policy is both text and action, words and deeds,
 it is what is enacted as well as what is intended.
 (Ball, 1994).

The main purpose of this speech is to highlight the strategic priorities of the Department of Education and indicate how we are going to 
resource them. These are premised on the provincial priorities as announced by the Premier. We recognize that our department being one of 
the departments that consume a larger part of the provincial budget is charged with the responsibility of leading in addressing its 
priorities. This is so because we have most of our children in the rural areas. Most of our schools are built in rural areas. Our HIV/AIDS 
programme targets the rural areas. We are also injecting a lot of donor funds in these areas.

This, I highlight, within the challenging environment of ensuring that resources are spent in an equitable manner within a context of huge 
backlogs, where the majority of our education stakeholders does not readily feel the impact.

This budget covers the period April 2001 to March 2002. It is an embodiment of our resolve to meet the needs of our customers within 
acceptable time standards. It reflects our strategic objectives and how we plan to deploy our resources to meet them. It is an indication 
of a plan -driven budget geared towards the implementation of coherent programmes to achieve the above.

Our restructuring process is a clear indication of our seriousness to improve our service standards and quality of our education 
provisioning. This has to be driven by a department that is responsive to the needs of its customers and socio-economic imperatives of its 
province and country as guided by acts and policies. In this regard we are determined to empower the decentralized nodes of the system 
closest to schools. This is in-line with the Cabinet resolution and as a department, we are disestablishing 5 regions and 41 districts and 
establish 22 more effective and empowered districts in order to accelerate the development of self-managing schools. We are flattening the 
structures of hierarchy and cutting the bureaucratic processes short in order to bring services closer to communities.

As a clear indication of our determination to implement our plan we are sending to the papers advertisements for our 22 district managers.

This department is faced with many challenges, which it intends to meet in the short to medium term. That increase will assist us to 
sustain the gains we have achieved through our intervention projects and those of our donors. Our challenge will be to manage our 
allocations more effectively and efficiently in order to ensure delivery of quality services to all our people in the Province.

The key thrust of our strategy to accomplish the said tasks is the consolidation of our capacity, stretching our resources through 
partnerships with local and international donors to meet our obligations to our stakeholders and integrating our plans and activities with 
other government departments, tertiary institutions and the Non-Governmental Organisations. This will find expression in the programmes 
that I will deal with later.

OUR VISION

The context of a "steady process of transformation that informs all aspects of our national life" rings as the background that informs our 
thrusts in government. That thrust hinges on issues of poverty alleviation. The President referred to the daunting backlog of poverty and 
misdistribution of income and wealth. These are the principal elements that inform the programme of action.

The President goes on to maintain the need for a concerted effort to improve the quality of education, including the provision of 
infrastructure, consolidating the culture of learning and teaching, including Adult Basic Education, with the clear objective of improving 
the skills base.

It is important to note the Presidents emphasis on an integrated rural development strategy and the urban renewal programme "The critical 
aim is to conduct a sustained campaign against rural and urban poverty, and underdevelopment, bringing in the resources of all three 
spheres of government in a coordinated manner". This is particularly pertinent vis--vis the rurality of our province in particular. This, 
in simple terms, is aimed at addressing the twin challenge of access and redress.

The vision of my Department remains that of providing an effective and efficient education system, with staff committed to values of 
accountability, equity, and accessibility and rendering quality service to citizens of the province.

In unpacking this vision Mr Speaker we are creating:

* a department of education that is fundamentally concerned with the quality of service to our children in schools. The department 
continues to priorities the qualitative and constructive interaction between educators and learners in the classroom in molding the future 
of our learners.
* an effective further education a training system that is responsive to the labour market and to economic needs and contributes more 
effectively to the human resource development strategy of our Province in particular and our country in general.
* an education system that promotes active stakeholder participation and protects our learners, educators and officials from all forms of 
socio-economic ills, including the major HIV/AIDS scourge.

It is in this context that we are mobilizing so passionately behind our corporate plan through which we continue seeking better ways to 
serve our people.

THE CORPORATE PLAN

Our corporate plan was refined towards the end of 2000. This is the guideline to the strategic direction and programmes that the Department 
of Education will follow for the next MTEF period, in order to develop an effective and efficient education system.

In the last budget speech we identified nine focus areas as fundamental in enhancing the capacity of our education system to deliver on its 
mandate.

These areas are:

* Building an effective General Education System by focusing on teaching and learning in schools
* Establishing an efficient and relevant Further Education and Training (FET) system that is integrated and aligned with all education 
sectors
* Promoting self-managing schools that are integrated with the community and serve as centres of community life
* Promoting teaching and learning through the provision of physical infrastructure that is both adequate and appropriate
* An education system prepared to meet social and economic challenges
* Promoting integrated and lifelong in-service education, training and professional development of educators, managers and administrators
* Transforming management systems and processes to ensure efficiency effectiveness, accountability and inclusiveness
* Transforming the organisational structure of the Department of Education to provide effective services and support to schools
* Organising and mobilising our resources effectively and efficiently

These focus areas have been translated into implementable programmes that will guide the activities of the Department of Education over the 
next five years.

These are:

* Education Provision and Administration
* Education Support Services
* Educator Development and Support
* Education Planning, Research, Management Information Systems and Communication
* District Development and Support
* Management and Administration

Each of these programmes covers various areas of responsibility as mandated to us by the Premier and the Executive Council. Programme 
managers, in consultation with our social partners, will do more work in these areas to address the serious challenges presented in this 
policy speech.

The 2001 implementation plan which focuses on district, circuit and school levels is being consolidated.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

I stood on this platform last year promising this house that we will boldly deal with our challenges. Key and central to those were 
systems, structures and administrative arrangements that did not serve us well.

Mr. Speaker I am happy to report the following:

* An improvement from 40.1% to 49.8% in the Matriculation results. There is 20% increase in the number of schools that achieved 100%. A 15% 
decrease of schools that achieved less than 30%.
* An organizational structure that reflects our shift from a centralized to a decentralized administration.
* Most of our Learner Support Material is in schools and we will complete delivery by end of March.
* An improved fraud detection system evidenced by the number of people who have been arrested and charged.
* Development of systems and procedures for the management of all categories of schools.
* Development of systems and procedures to manage a pilot, that will test implementation, models for FET Schooling.
* Provision of motor vehicles for EDOS to conduct school visits
* The redeployment of more than 10000 educators that helped bridge the gap in some of the most rural and disadvantaged communities
* A district implementation plan
* Breaking the back of the backlog problem
* A major expansion of the school building programme

KEY CHALLENGES

There are still several challenges that need to be tackled as we strive to provide and achieve quality basic education for all citizens of 
the Province.

* Extending access and redress with special emphasis on the girl-child, the disabled, the adult learner and Grade R learners.
* Quality of teaching and learning

* Improving the quality of mathematics and science teaching
* raising literacy and numeracy levels
* increasing matriculation pass rates

* Provisioning, rehabilitation and maintenance of adequate infrastructure

* classrooms
* Education Development Centres
* District offices

* Community involvement
* Consolidation of partnerships for enhanced delivery
* HIV/AIDS
* Quality of management and administrative capacity

* Improvement in service standards, especially turnaround times

* A robust and efficient Management Information System

Mr Speaker, I will next outline programme plans that give expression to our resolve to address the above challenges. Before I get to these, 
however, I would like to focus a bit on our ideas for the decentralization of our delivery, management and support capability, structured 
around the district as both programme priority and organizing pivot for other programmes.

THE DISTRICT IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the house that my department, in line with the decision of the Executive Council, would be 
decentralizing its administration.

We shall establish new vibrant and responsive district offices staffed with managers that have been carefully selected. Unlike the 41 
districts that were structurally unviable we have decided to move to 22 new districts. This will assist us in aligning our services with 
other social needs cluster departments. In line with the reconfiguration of the local government districts, our districts will transcend 
all racial and socio-economic divisions.

These districts will progressively be empowered to take decisions on, amongst others, the employment and payment of an educator, 
substitution, leave, extension of curriculum, Special Education, Further Education and Training.

We will ensure that our districts are able to provide all the support necessary to our schools. Our aim is to progressively increase the 
number of self-managing schools within ten years. It is a tall order, I admit, but we will succeed with all the support that you will give 
us, and those partners who are confident that our target is realistic and achievable.

In each district we shall have an Education Development Centre where all training of employees will take place. In each Education 
Development Centre there will be a Resource Centre the main aim of which is to enhance professional development of our employees.

I would like to inform the house that from the very first time that we started the process of restructuring we have received numerous 
offers of support in both cash and kind. The Department for International Development, United States Aid Agency, Swiss Aid Agency, Quality 
Learning Project, Delta Foundation and many others have all pledged to support us. The bulk of the funds for this activity will be drawn 
from the Policy Reserve Fund and donor support. What we have allocated for this sub-programme is money for administrative purposes.

This transformation will be a process. It will also demand that we deploy a sizeable amount of resources to this project. We have 
identified the location of our district offices and we have strived to keep them as close as possible with those of the other Social Needs 
cluster departments. We subscribe fully to the notion of a one- stop centres where possible,

We have set ourselves a target date of 01 April 2001 to start implementing our District Implementation Plan. All our district offices will 
be cabled and linked to Head Office. This will help usher my department into the world of technology. It will also reduce the travel costs. 
All these offices will have PERSAL, FMS, EMIS and LOGIS systems. They will have access to e-mail and the Internet. Our goal is to have 
video-conferencing facilities to further enhance our communication within and outside the department.

These new districts will be encouraged to work very closely with communities and local government structures to ensure that they respond 
appropriately to the needs of the communities.

2001/2002 BUDGET

The detailed budget allocation I am about to present for the consideration and ultimate acceptance by the House Mr. Speaker, represents the 
focal policy choices the department has made in an effort to give effect to the plans I have alluded to above.

BUDGET ALLOCATION

NON-PERSONNEL ALLOCATION

The department is experiencing a relative financial stability which will enable us to shift resources to schools where our focus of 
teaching and learning is.

The non-personnel budget allocation represents our resolve to ensuring the provisioning of basic resources to our two million learners as 
primary beneficiaries of education, which is their basic right as enshrined in the constitution.

Our resolve to ensure that our schools are self-managing schools will be accelerated by enhancing the management capacity of our school 
managers, whilst providing the necessary in-service training to our educators.

The non-personnel budget for the 2001/2002 financial year amounts to a total of R1 billion. This represents a steady resolve by the 
department to achieve its service delivery plan and accelerates its implementation of the departments implementation plan.

PERSONNEL ALLOCATION

The department has strengthened its control and monitoring of its budget expenditure, and expending within its budget allocation for the 
financial year 2000/2001. The controls placed on our personnel expenditure and the mopping- up of the rationalization and redeployment 
process, presented us with an opportunity to assess the level of need at school level and we will systemically provide those educators to 
needy schools.

This fiscal discipline has come at a price for our schools hence the audit conducted by the department on number of vacancies and costing 
thereof. The support by the MEC for Finance and our management teams ensured that there is accurate and realistic planning pursued by the 
Department of Education. The additional appropriation of R140 million has provided the necessary impetus to our mission of rendering 
quality education.

Mr Speaker, managing, controlling and accounting for the utilization of the scarce resources allocated to the department is a triangular 
challenge we need to continue harmonizing as we accelerate the equitable provisioning of resources over the coming years.

The Department engaged in a three-pronged strategy for cleaning our EC 5.1 for confirmation of our work force at school, district, regional 
and provincial level, EMIS ten-day returns and annual survey and the cleansing of our Persal system through a project called Getting The 
Record Straight. This project is driven with the assistance of the Office of the Premier.

This exercise has revealed that we have vacant posts for principals, Heads of Department, Education Development Officers, Subject Advisors 
and educators. This impacts adversely on the quality of teaching and learning. The Morkel model sets the teacher : pupil ratio at 1 : 35 
for secondary school and 1 : 40 for primary schools. In pursuance of our overriding goal of access and redress, particularly in rural 
areas, we have decided to set our provincial target as 1 : 32 this financial year in order to achieve quality teaching and learning. We 
will address the following by filling critical posts.

Mr Speaker, provision has been made for 1845 substitutes. Districts will be allocated their quota in proportion to the number of educators 
employed in them.

PROGRAMME ALLOCATION OF THE BUDGET

Mr Speaker, let me pronounce on the set of priorities that my Department will focus on within the budget allocated to each programme. The 
programme allocation of the budget for 2001/02 is as follows:

Administration and Management    555 380
Public ordinary school education        6 213 878
Private ordinary school education        11 257
Special Needs in education      165 244
Teacher Education       157 895
Technical Education     117 134
Informal Education      96 524
Auxiliary and Associated Services       507 434
TOTAL    7 824 746

The Department maintains its focus of providing quality education to public schools in pursuance of excellence in all our institutions 
within the limits of the budget allocated to the Department. Positioning the department to deliver quality and speedy service to the 
citizenry of the Province through self-managing districts in 2001/02, and it is through this programme allocation that the latter will be 
attained.

PROGRAMME 1: ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT      R555 380 000

This programme is responsible for policy development, analysis and coordination, programme design and coordination and district 
coordination and support, quality assurance, communication. This has been given effect through our organizational structure which indicates 
clearly our determination to devolve authority to the district level where implementation takes place..

This signifies a significant shift from a system level priority programming to an institutional and spatial targeting. This is in line with 
what I alluded to in my introduction.

PROGRAMME 2: PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION     R6 213 878 000

The largest portion of the Departments budget (79.4%) is allocated to this programme whose main function it is to improve teaching and 
learning in the classroom. This will be done by resourcing, maintaining, monitoring and supporting schools both professionally and 
administratively in line with existing legislation.

Public Ordinary School Education is inclusive of 6520 public schools from grades R to grade 12, and served 2 070 642 learners in 2000. 
School based support being provided by the Education Development Officers (EDOS) whose budget this financial year totals R13 million, and 
administrative support being provided by the Directorate ECD, General and Further Education whose budget totals R8.7 million. The priority 
of providing subsidized cars to the EDOs has been achieved in the 2000 financial year providing the vital face to face link with the 
schools and the District management.

The 2001/2 personnel budget allocation of R5.8 billion will cover the cost of permanent educators within the system as well as the EDOs and 
non teaching support staff, whilst an amount of R16 million has been set aside for 200 emergency grants for educators and an amount of R33 
million for substitutes.

The non-personnel allocation for public schools of R373.7 million is a significant increase from the previous years budget and will 
adequately provide for teaching and learning materials as well as the running costs and support services for schools.

This will be further supplemented by the Conditional Grant Funds from National to the tune of R18.8 million which will fund key projects 
such as Values in Education, the Matriculation Intervention Programme, the Further Education and Training Focus Schools project, the 
foundations for the implementation of the Grade R policy and Systems and procedures development.

Curriculum 2005 continues to be at the core of providing for the implementation of outcomes based education. Workbooks for grades 5 and 9 
as well as top up workbooks for grades 1, 4, 7 and 8 are budgeted to the tune of R87.4 million, whilst R32,5 million is the amount provided 
for stationery for grades 1 to 9.

Grades 10 - 12 have been provided for when it comes to top up for text book provisioning with an amount of R 18 million being set aside for 
this top up exercise and for the language learning areas which will for the first time in five years be able to replace the prescribed set 
work books for these grades.

Consumables and equipment for grades 1 - 12 has been catered for in a budgetary allocation totaling R63,7 million. This is earmarked for 
chalks and dusters in the foundation and intermediate phases and will, in accordance with provincial policy concentrate on the provision of 
technical equipment and consumables as well as the replacement of science consumables in the junior secondary and senior secondary phases.

Municipal service budgets will be effectively managed and controlled within the budget limits to the tune of R23,2 million, whilst rentals 
for public schools on private property amount to R3 million . Boarding and scholar transport will be funded on an equitable basis 
throughout all Districts: R7 million in the case of boarding subsidies and R13 million in the case of scholar transport. This will support 
and kick start the implementation of the policy for Public Schools on Private Property which is inclusive of Small, Farm and Church 
schools.

The implementation of Norms and Standards for School Funding will continue to add self managing schools that meet the selection criteria 
and this will be funded proportionately from the existing programme 2 budget.

The emerging Grade R policy provides for the phased in provision of cost effective Reception class provisioning. A budget of R8.8 million 
will provide for per capita subsidies for existing grade R sites as well as for extensive training and support in the implementation of the 
new policy for all schools and ECD Centres providing education at this level. The National department will supplement this budget for the 
next 3 years providing R3.8 million for basic resource packs for this financial year. A ten year implementation plan will see an extension 
of this model across the province.

Mr Speaker, I will fail in my duty if I dont acknowledge and appreciate the contributions made by all our local and international donors 
towards the enrichment of our strategy for whole school development.

PROGRAMME 3: PRIVATE ORDINARY EDUCATION         R11 257 000

This program provides funds to all eligible independent schools and has an allocation of R11 257 000 for the 2001/02 financial year. 
Eligibility to subsidy is in terms of criteria as determined by Norms and Standards for School Funding. Payment of these subsidies is 
therefore on a sliding scale.

We have a constitutional obligation to support these schools. They offer our communities with a wider choice of schools and pose a 
challenge to all our public schools to improve their performance.

The increase from last years allocation of R10 223 640.00 results of the increase in the public schools per capita allocation, increase in 
the number of independent schools and the fact that provision for administration of the sector has to be made. There are 100 registered 
independent schools in the Province.

PROGRAMME 4: SPECIAL NEEDS IN EDUCATION         R165 244 000

This Directorate aims at interventions targeting learners directly. It also has a legal obligation to ensure that all learners are given 
equal opportunity to access education by changing the system of education such that it is barrier- free and addresses the needs of each 
individual learner.

A number of services and programmes are driven by specialists in this directorate to achieve these aims in line with policies that govern 
the education system. The integration of learners with special needs within the mainstream of public schools wherever possible poses a key 
challenge for the special needs programme.

DANIDA is funding a pilot project regarding Inclusive Education in twelve schools in the province. Special needs in education advisors will 
be placed in the Education Development Centres within the new district format. Education Support Services which include remedial, guidance, 
psychological and therapeutic services will be rendered to special as well as mainstream schools.

The personnel allocation is R124, 6 million, which covers the costs of special school educators, non-teaching staff and support staff. This 
figure includes an allocation for non-teaching staff in the former Transkei who were previously not on Persal.

From the non-personnel allocation of R37, 9 million, R18, 6 million will provide for transfer payments to special schools to cover their 
running costs, learning materials, transport and equipment.

An amount of R11 747 000 has been allocated for HIV/Aids programmes from the Conditional grant. This amount will be used for HIV/Aids 
prevention programmes, counseling programmes, learner and educator resource kits for HIV/Aids Lifeskills programmes.

The Human Rights Week in Education week will be celebrated during the leading up to and including the Human Rights Day (21 March). 
Combating racism, racial discrimination xenophobia and all forms of discrimination is very high on Human Rights Education agenda this year. 
School in the past were a fertile ground for breeding racism and other forms of discrimination, however, with intensive Democracy and Human 
Rights Education (DHRE) programmes this will be eradicated.

In 2001 emphasis will be on:

* Values Education
* Combating Racism in our schools
* Human Rights and HIV and AIDS
* The Childrens Rights

PROGRAMME 5: TEACHER EDUCATION   R157 895 000

As intimated in the previous years policy speech, the emphasis in the field of teacher education within the Province is changing from that 
of pre-service training of teachers to focussing on the in-service professional development of educators.

In this context, the constitutional requirement that all pre-service teacher education be of national competence has now been implemented 
and the process of incorporating the four colleges of education into the higher education sector is nearing completion.

Within the context of rolling out a functional decentralised delivery system, and in the interests of the optimum utilisation of available 
resources, the Department has identified a number of the college of education premises for use as District Centres, incorporating the full 
range of integrated education services, including operational Educational Development Centres (or EDCs) in each District.

In terms of INSET delivery, the functions of policy development and implementation will be coordinated and planned collectively at District 
level. For operational efficiency, the activities of this programme will be incorporated with those of Curriculum in Programme 8 to provide 
a fully coordinated, efficient and effective professional development service.

It is pertinent to note, Mr. Speaker, that R150 847 458 of the total of

R152 712 172 is allocated to Personnel. This apparently disparate balance is caused by the inclusion of all staff that operated in the 
recently disestablished colleges of education. It is expected that the personnel will be appointed to suitable posts during the course of 
this year, and in terms of accepted procedures, &#145;funds will then follow function.

PROGRAMME 6: FET - TECHNICAL EDUCATION   R117 134 000

This programme is meant to respond to the human resource needs of the province by linking up with business, commerce and industry. As it 
further unfolds it intends to respond to integrate rural development strategy as well as urban renewal strategy of the province. This is 
meant to expand the opportunities of our communities especially rural communities to access the necessary skills and expertise. This 
programme is the most responsive to the notion of Recognition of Prior Learning.

To create more flexible and responsive FET institutions, we are engaged in the re-organisation of the institutional landscape as informed 
by our educational goals, that is; redress, equity, access, quality of provision as well as efficiency and effectiveness to service 
delivery.

We are creating multi-dimensional growth model with multi-modes of institutional delivery as informed by regional and spatial development 
needs of the Province.

For 2001/2002 budgets, we will concentrate on the three issues:

* Institutional Development
* Leadership and Management training
* Research and Communication

Funds have been allocated to assist institutions to meet the criteria for declaration as FET institutions, while they are being clustered 
and merged. There is also an allocation to improve infrastructure of the technical/community colleges in the form of classrooms and 
workshops with teaching and learning equipment. A New program-based funding model will be piloted to assist program development and 
delivery at institutional level.

It is pertinent to note that R8 7845 000 is allocated to personnel and R29 288 737 to non-personnel.

PROGRAMME 7: ADULT BASIC EDUCATION AND TRAINING  R96 524 000

ABET is one of the provincial priority programmes which should be seen as an indispensable transformation project, contributing to the 
reconstruction and development of our disadvantaged communities.

According to the constitution of our land in the Bill of Rights, Section 29

(i) Everyone has the right to a basic education including adult basic education. The state must therefore, respect, protect, promote and 
fulfill the adults right to basic education.

The province is taking reasonable action within its many programmes, to achieve the progressive realization of this noble goal, by 
targeting the following:

(a) Marginalised rural and urban unemployed women
 (b) Unemployed out of school youth
 (c) Adults with special disabilities and with special learning needs

The programme will deliver the following :

* Social mobilization and advocacy including orientation on ABET Act
* Purchase of learner support materials including teaching aids
* Training of personnel managers, district and centre coordinators, centre governing bodies and retraining of educators
* Developing learning support material
* Centre support and monitoring programmes
* Purchase of special equipments for the physically disabled learners
* Continuous and summative assessment preparations for ABET Level 4 National Examinations
* Inclusion of HIV/AIDS programmes in the Life Orientation Learning Area

PROGRAMME 8: AUXILLIARY AND ASSOCIATED SERVICES         R507 434 000

Physical Resource Planning. R273 584 000

The total budget allocation for Physical Resource Planning for the 2001/2002 financial year is R273,584 million.

The total budget allocated for the provision and maintenance of education infrastructure is R248 413 046.

Compared to the R107 million allocated during the 2000/2001 financial year this amount represents a significant increase of 132%.

Out of this budget we have allocated R217 295 166 for Land and Buildings.

Education in the Province is seriously hampered by the lack of proper infrastructure in a large number of our schools. This allocation aims 
to address this need and therefore will impact significantly on the teaching and learning in the classroom.

The funding set aside for minor repairs will create opportunities for communities to participate in repairing their schools and foster 
material ownership as well assisting the Department in safe guarding the schools against vandalism.

During the previous financial year the Department has put out to tender 134 projects which include the rebuilding of 23 mud structures and 
the rehabilitation of 111 tornado damaged schools.

Through this programme over 400 community members have been trained and a significant number of jobs created.

Additional schools will be added to this programme during this coming financial year.

The Department has been fortunate in securing donor funding through the EU and the Japanese Government. The 50 schools in the Northern 
Region and former South Eastern Region funded by the EU have now been completed and the building of an additional 16 schools will soon 
commence.

The 45 schools in the Eastern Region have been completed towards the end of last year and discussions are underway with the Japanese 
Government to build another 20 schools in the EG Kei Region.

I also want to express my heartfelt appreciation to the Business Community in our country, who through the initiatives such as our former 
President Mandela, have contributed substantially towards providing much needed educational facilities. 62 schools have benefited from 
these interventions at a cost of approximately R66 million

The former District Regional Services Councils have also intervened in a number of rural schools through the provisioning of classrooms, 
toilets, fencing and electricity and I therefore wish to express our gratitude for the support given to our school communities.

The Department has also begun renovating the government buildings in zone 6, Zwelitsha. Funds have been allocated to create adequate office 
space to accommodate the entire Head Office staff in these buildings. This will bring about considerable savings to Government in terms of 
rentals, but also contribute towards setting up systems to improve education service delivery. R6,5 million has been set aside to achieve 
this.

Approximately R11 million has been set aside to undertake a complete survey of all schools in the Province. This will enable the Department 
to produce a holistic plan to address the classroom backlog in a more systematic and cost effective manner. A school mapping exercise will 
be undertaken in all the Districts and all the stakeholders will be consulted.

Education Management Information systems (EMIS)         R 4 001 218

The Education Management Information System (EMIS) unit has been allocated a budget of R4.1 million leveraged against support from donor 
partners viz. USAID. The money will be spent in improving the quality and usage of EMIS information in the following ways:

* Addressing infrastructural and staffing needs to operationalise EMIS.
* Building the capacity of staff at all levels to access, use and maintain EMIS.
* Establishing systems and mechanisms to disseminate information to all stakeholders.

We are determined to raise the profile of EMIS and a commensurate appreciation for the importance of information in decision-making and 
accountability. In this regard we are redesigning our EMIS in line with our district-driven thrust as well as integrating formerly 
disparate management information systems e.g. PERSAL, FMS.

Assessment       R 76 090 000

A total of R76 090 000 million has been allocated for conducting examinations of the year 2001. The Department continues to strive for a 
zero defect examinations, and this practice needs to be intensified especially with the writing of the five national question papers, Abet 
level 4 examinations and continued utilization of our institutions as marking centers.

Decentralisation of capturing of grade 12 candidates at district level will ensure speedy ratification of erroneous candidates 
particulars. Our data capturers will be utilized for capturing continuous assessment marks and end-of-the-year marks.

Curriculum      R 149 255 000

Teacher Development and Support has been nationally identified and singled out as key and central to the improvement of education output. 
Experience gained from the Curriculum 2005 Review process has taught us one lesson, and that is the centrality of teacher proficiency in 
major education transformation initiatives.

In its allocations for the current budget the Department has targeted teacher development in a much more improved way than the previous 
financial years.

The first target is 25 000 Grades 5 and 9 teachers who will be introducing Curriculum 2005 for the first time this year. An amount of R8 
million has been set-aside for this purpose.

CONDITIONAL GRANTS       R55 037 000

R55 037 000 Conditional grant for 2001/2002. Of this amount, R39 405 000 will be used to continue to support the national framework for 
Tirisano Campaign in line with the activities enunciated in the Departments Corporate Plan. The key strategic thrusts in respect of the 
allocation will be as follows:

* Support to the implementation of Curriculum 2005
* Matriculation Intervention Strategy
* School Development Planning
* Systemic and Whole School Development and Evaluation
* Critical systems and Procedures for Districts and schools
* School Safety Project (Targeting crime, drugs, vandalism, racism, etc.
* Improving learner participation in and effective teaching in Mathematics, Science and Technology
* Focus Schools Project
* EMIS and IT
* Develop research capacity within the Department

R11 747 000 has been allocated for HIV/Aids programmes.

R3 885 000 has been allocated to launch an intensive preparation programme for the phasing in of the Reception year as the first year of 
compulsory schooling in 2002.

CONCLUSION

Mr. Speaker, I am sure everyone in this house will agree, the task at hand is enormous, but the resolve to ensure optimal operational 
efficiency and effectiveness is as constant as the Northern Star.

The policy of this Department has always been, and will remain, that of partnership and collaboration with social partners. We, therefore, 
reiterate our call to our stakeholders, and members of the education fraternity, to make use of their collective wisdom, in the enrichment 
of our experiences and capacity in education delivery.

We will continue appreciating the indelible mark and contribution made by the international communities in making our task easier.

The President, in his inaugural speech of June 1999, captures the essence of our resolve:

At the dawn of a new life, our practical actions must ensure that none can challenge us when we say - we are a nation at work to build a 
better life.

I THANK YOU.

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