SUMMARY The briefing was attended by Education Minister, Ms Naledi Pandor; Labour Minister, Mr Membathisi Mdladlana; and Deputy Minister of Sports and Recreation, Mr Gert Oosthuizen.
The briefing dealt mainly with the human resources development strategy within the cluster. In the Education Department, the focus would be on training maths and science teachers. A study to assess the shortage of teachers would be undertaken. The Minister of Labour said they would research the reasons why there was a large number of drop outs from the learnership programme. Furthermore, they had identified a need for the realignment of the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs).
The Education Minister said there was an urgent need to fast track the development of human resources within the Department. There had been an huge uptake in learnerships. The partnership between Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges and the SETAs would play a significant role. Skills development. funding would be channelled to training maths and science teachers to address the shortages of properly qualified personnel. Information and Communication Technology Centres would be established throughout the country. School governing bodies would be strengthened. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme would continue to fund students in tertiary institutions. A fund named after Mr O R Tambo would be established to train maths and science teachers. An Education Summit would be held in Durban to chart a way forward in addressing the problems in education.
Minister Mdadlana’s briefing
Mr Mdlaldana highlighted that skills training for the disabled, the unemployed and women would be intensified. He said some SETAs would be merged to avoid duplication. For example, the Primary Agriculture Seta would be merged with the Secondary Agriculture Seta. The Department aimed to merge all Seta’s that dealt with Government employees under the Public Services Seta. The Defence Seta would be merged with the Police Seta.
Discussion Mr Daniel Joubert, Beeld, asked about the problems with working with some officials in the Departmentof Education. When would the Department of Education appoint the Director General? What was the delay with the Education Laws Amendment Bill? What were the Minister’s views on the role of SGB in hiring staff?
Mister Mdladladlana replied that his Department had no problems in working with the Department of Education.
Minister N Pandor replied that the post of Director-General had been advertised and there were competent staff within the Department.
Mr Hamlin asked why Agriculture had two Seta’s
Mr Gert Coetzee asked how the sport law would work to transform sport. What was the position of the Department of Sport and Recreation in supporting the World Cup Bid?
The Deputy Minister of Sport replied that the purpose of the briefing was to discuss the Human Resources Development Strategy and he would deal with such questions at another time.
Ms Carol Paton, Financial Mail, asked the Minister if they would consider importing teachers to address the skills shortage. Furthermore, she asked why the Seta’s had underspent.
Minister Mdladlana replied that 25 Setas had been established as a result of Nedlac deliberations, so some Setas have overlapping areas of jurisdiction. For example, water and forestry overlapped with the Local Government Seta. There was a need to merge the two Agriculture Setas.
Minister Mdladlana added that about R350 million had been collected monthly, and R280 million had been distributed to Setas. The rest had gone to discretionary funds and only 2% had gone to the SA Revenue Services (SARS) to pay collection fees. Some businesses paid for skills development and they did not bother to train and claim back their funds.
Ms Pandor responded that teacher education programmes had been transferred to the Higher Education Authority and funding had been moved to the national body. It was no longer a provincial competency. The shortage of maths and science teachers would be addressed by establishing a bursary fund, named after Oliver Tambo, who was also science teacher. The government had committed R15 million towards the fund and the private sector would contribute a portion. The myth of large number of unemployed teachers was based on the fact that those teachers were skilled in subjects which already had many available teachers. Countries such as Japan and Cuba had offered teacher trainers and assessors. Co-operation with Korea on training assessors was in discussion. A study by the International Labour Organisation was being conducted to assess teacher shortage.
Mr Conrad Burke, SABC, asked about children learning under trees.
Ms Pandor answered that the challenge of building more schools remained. The bureaucratic red tape within the provincial authority had led to delays in building more schools in rural areas. The Minister of Public Works and Education would iron out problems in that particular area. Provinces had complained that they did not have adequate funding, but in reality they underspent on infrastructure. Ms Pandor had spoken to provincial Premiers to monitor their provincial treasurers. She had also met with all the Chairpersons of the Education Provincial Committees and asked what kind of questions they were asking when addressing the problem. South Africa had enough money to build the necessary school facilities.
Ms Manuel Perez, Weekly News from Portugal, asked what programmes were in place to ensure that girls were encouraged to take up maths and science as school subjects.
Ms Pandor replied that the problem of girls not taking up maths and science was endemic throughout the developing world. Access to schools in South Africa was 50/50 boys and girls, but girls were not performing as well as boys. South Africa needed to clearly articulate encouragement and provide incentives for girls. The Carnegie Scholarship targetted young women to study information technology, science and medicine. There was a ‘girl’s movement’ that encouraged girls in Uganda and Lesotho to take up non-traditional subjects. There was a need for more female teachers and deans to act as role models in science faculties.
Mr Michael Curry asked what had been done to increase Higher Grade pass rates in maths and science, because this had not improved over the last ten years for African students.
Ms Pandor answered that there was a need to target schools that were performing well and find out what programmes they had in place. Those programmes could be improved and implemented in schools that were not performing well. Teacher development programmes had to be put in place to improve skills levels. Schools had to recruit properly qualified teachers who could teach effectively. Furthermore, physical education would be reintroduced as a school subject because ‘a healthy mind needs a healthy body’.
Mr Alister Sparks, Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, asked what had been done to recruit the teachers who took voluntary packages during the redeployment era.
Ms Pandor replied that a number of provinces had already started recruiting those teachers who took voluntary severance packages. A number of South African teachers who had left for other countries were returning to their profession. Importing teachers would only be done if the results of the ILO-supported study reflected shortages. The Department had not ruled out utilising skills from outside South Africa.
Mr Monare, Independent Newspapers, enquired why the number of engineering students had not increased in the recent past. Were there any programmes in place to rectify the situation?
A journalist asked about the future of the National Skills Authority Project, seeing that its mandate was coming to an end. What would be the future of the SA Qualifications Authority?
Ms Pandor replied that SAQA will continue to exist. However, the number of the board members would be reduced. A review process would be undertaken to make sure that it worked in a co-ordinated fashion with other bodies. Umalusi would continue to play a critical role in examination results improvements.
Mr F Haffejee, Mail & Guardian, asked what had been done to address the 10 - 15 % dropout rate in the learnership programme.
Mr Mdlaldana replied that the learnership dropout rate would be investigated to ascertain the inherent problems. The reasons were not clear enough. There were thousands of learners who were eager for those opportunities.
A Chinese press agency asked the numbers of Japanese and Cuban teachers in South Africa.
Ms Pandor replied that the extent of teacher shortages was not clear. With regards to Cuba and Japan, this was extra support from their education departments.