Each One Teach One: Together Building a Learning Home for All
Elkeen Leer Iemand - Saam Bou Ons 'n Leertuiste vir Almal Omnye
Ufundisa Omnye - Sakha Kunye Ikhaya Lokufunda Lomntu Wonke

Ms Pasiye
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is an honour to be speaking to you on this occasion of the very first conference at the Cape Teaching Institute and especially when the conference theme is one which is so close to my heart and is, in fact one of my six priorities as MEC.

I talked a bit about "hope" in my budget speech last week, building on the concept of "The Age of Hope" of our President. Our Premier in his budget speech noted that Gramsci "believed in hope rather than promises and hope is a long affair".

I want to say that hope encourages the development of imaginative solutions to seemingly huge difficulties. In fact, David Halpin radically argues that "unless hope has been aroused and is alive, there can be no planning" / "ngaphandle kokuba ithemba liye lavuselelwa kwaye liphilile, akunakubakho zicwangciso" / tensy hoop gewek is en lewend is, kan daar geen beplanning wees nie.

The cultural historian, Raymond Williams, quoted by David Halpin, says that it is only in a shared belief and insistence that there are practical alternatives that the balance of forces and chances begins to alter. Once the inevitabilities are challenged, he says, we begin gathering our resources for a journey of hope/ reis met hoop / uhambo lwethemba.

I see today as the beginning of such an uhambo lwethemba. I don't think that you would all be here if everything were just plain sailing at your schools and in your classrooms. We don't talk about needing "solutions" unless we think that we have "problems". And we know that we DO have problems in our classrooms and our schools. And I'm not going to just gloss over these today.

We have serious problems: our provincial literacy levels in Grades 3 and 6 show a stark picture of differences. On the language tests, which are on the level of Home Language English or Afrikaans, our ex-CED schools are doing quite well; their good scores are counter-balanced by the ex-DET schools which are faring badly and the ex-HOR schools, which make up the majority of schools in the province, throw up scores which are, through weight of numbers, close to our eventual provincial average. Researchers, like Dr Heugh who will speak to you tomorrow, tell us that our province is doing better than the others because we have such a high proportion of learners learning through their own mother-tongue.

Our society was stratified and divided along racial lines in more ways than we can list. Differential funding hit housing, schooling, job prospects, family life - every possible part of people's worlds.

It hit "hope".

I mention the historical contexts of the schools because their results are telling us about inequities that still exist. We need to identify these quite clinically and then start to define, equally clinically, the practical alternatives" that I mentioned above. Each of us as an individual has to find and target AND WORK TOWARDS those solutions.

But my main point today is going to be about the power in our various collectives. If we develop shared visions and set up joint forces then we've got a much better chance of being driven by - let's call them "valid" - hopes.

I want to propose three main languages' solutions today

You're here today for a number of reasons.

• Some of you are coming to share your own tentative solutions, or ideas about things that have worked for you. You're maybe a bit nervous and maybe not concentrating very well on what I'm saying right now. To you I say, well done! Thanks for your courage and creativity. Thanks for being contributors.
• Some of you have come to learn. You might have made huge sacrifices to get here - arranged childcare, borrowed money, driven for most of the day. To you I say, well done! It takes character to say "I've got something to learn. I don't have all the answers. I'm keen to make a difference. I will give up my Saturday".
• Some of you are here today and you're not planning to be here tomorrow. I'm referring particularly to those who have been here for this week as part of a training programme but who have not taken up the option of staying on till tomorrow. That saddens me. Learning is a long journey and it's a complex one. Our learners have been put into our hands: their fragile futures, their dreams, their children's futures and dreams - they are all in our hands - yours and mine. But the kind of learning turnaround that this province needs has to be driven by teachers who are also "driven". We need to know that our teachers will grab any chance for professional development with open hands. I want to say that I know that tomorrow will be a wonderful day. Dr Heugh is a remarkable expert, Mr Schreuder has a critical message for you all as classroom leaders, the parallel sessions look rich and varied. What a feast! I urge you all, those who are only planning to be day-trippers, to re-think.

This Institute is the kingpin of this "Teacher Support and Development" solution. The world our learners are in is a new one. There's less reading and more TV. There's less talking and more TV. Our teachers weren't trained to deal with children quite like these.

Our teachers weren't trained to teach in multilingual classrooms but there's been a huge migration of learners and that's what we're faced with. Our teachers were trained in another curriculum with another approach altogether. We have a new curriculum with a fundamentally different approach to teaching and learning.

Our teachers have to have "time out" so they can stock up on new skills. And they need more than a quick workshop at the end of a long hard day. The CTI is a big part of our recipe for the future. Through the CTI we can have teachers here, if needed, for weeks. We have built this into our operational budget.

Ladies and Gentlemen we will have to be scientific about building this solution. We have schools of different types - we have those that are basically monolingual; we have those that are basically dual or parallel medium; we have multigrade rural schools; we have trilingual schools.

I want to announce here today that we will be very systematic both in our selection of courses and in our selection of teachers to undergo training here.

• Fact: we must equip our teachers with the skills to be good teachers if we can see that they need help.
• Fact: Statistics tell us that the ex-DET schools are faring the worst in tests so logic suggests we need to give support there first.

It makes sense for us to group schools with similar profiles together for training also makes sense for us to provide long training courses. So we will concentrate on one category at a time but know that we are going to work with all our schools in turn. Step by step. We must put those plans into practice and slowly but surely turn our schools around.

• Fact: Research tells us quite clearly that our children have better chances of educational success if they learn through their mother-tongue for as long as possible.
• Fact: the system (the WCED) MUST then make it its BUSINESS to tell parents this.
• Fact: the WCED must then help schools to manage this properly.

The WCED is about to announce a new "Language-in-education Transformation Plan". We plan to announce TARGETS to schools.

The first target will be that, wherever possible, learners should have mother-tongue instruction until the end of Grade 6 at the earliest. We have many careful plans to make this happen properly and in stages. It can never just happen overnight - we know that.

Linguists tell us that "language" and "identity" are completely intertwined. We have a number of habits that have developed in our country (and around the world for that matter) and we understand all the historical influences that have pushed us into this place. One habit is that people increasingly choose English as a medium - even when their home language is Afrikaans or Xhosa.

We are making our children turn their backs on their own languages: we are practicing what they call "subtractive bilingualism" - we are simply "giving up" our own languages for the "perceived" or "imagined" benefits of another one. We must remember that country has a policy of additive bilingualism or even multilingualism.

This is Target Number 2 - the other part of our transformation plan - at least 3 years of trilingualism for all our learners before the end of the GET band. We plan to make sure that all 3 of the languages of the province are given status.

We're saying that no-one need stop using his or her language. We want to grow language pride: if others are learning my language then it helps me know that my language is also valued. My self-esteem grows.

• Fact: In this country we need to keep our own language strong and ADD more languages to it.

So the WCED plans to encourage firstly BILINGUALISM - home language PLUS a very strong additional language (English will likely be either the first or the second one of these two). Secondly, we encourage TRILINGUALISM.

I'm not going into the details here, Ladies and Gentlemen. We're still refining the plans and looking forward to a national language colloquium on 27th July. What I do say though, quite categorically, is that we know that one of the reasons for poor scores on tests is because learners are not being taught in their mother-tongue. And what I'm saying is that if we KNOW that this is a problem, then we need to work to fix that problem.

During the presidency of Julius Nyerere he promoted a Tanzanian version of local-based socialism and self-reliance known as 'ujamaa (familyhood) socialism' organized around co-operative villages. Nyerere's 'ujamaa socialism' has three main principles: equality and respect for human dignity, sharing of the resources which are produced by the efforts of all, and work by everyone and exploitation by none.

This is the crux of the topic chosen for today. I'm not going to look into socialism per se but I want to adapt the idea of familyhood for my argument. Remember we're looking at HOPE today, ladies and gentlemen, and solutions. We're not here to get gloomy. We understand the idea of a "long affair".

I want to remind us of that message of cultural historian, Raymond Williams, quoted by David Halpin, when he said that it is only in a shared belief and insistence that there are practical alternatives that the balance of forces and chances begins to alter. Once the inevitabilities are challenged, he says, we begin gathering our resources for a journey of hope/ reis met hoop / uhambo lwethemba.

All too often in life we think we are the only ones left stuck with having to solve terrible problems. I'm prepared to bet that we've got lots of that kind of person here today: people who carry the loads of others; people who step in time and again to "fix things".

Why did I start with Each One Teach One: Together Building A Learning Home For All /Elkeen Leer Iemand - Saam Bou Ons 'n Leertuiste Vir Almal / Omnye Ufundisa Omnye - Sakha Kunye Ikhaya Lokufunda Lomntu Wonke?

What do I mean with "familyhood" in this context?

I want us to work really hard at this third solution. What's a "Learning Home", after all? How will I know when I've got one? How do I know if I haven't? Could there maybe be such a thing as a "Learning Street" or a "Learning Community".

How do I know if I've got a "Learning Cape". Or, let's go right back to your lives: am I sure I've actually even got a "Learning Classroom"? I'm not going to try to answer these questions now. I ask you to jot them down and think quietly about them in the next two days. I'll repeat them quickly: What's a "Learning Home"?

How will I know when I've got one? How do I know if I haven't? Could there maybe be such a thing as a "Learning Street" or a "Learning Community"? How do I know if I've got a "Learning Cape"? Am I sure I've got a "Learning Classroom"?

My challenge to all of us on this third solution is simple: find support. Know that you don't have to provide all the solutions yourself. What are the literacy levels in your learners' homes? Do their parents read? Can their parents read? Is there anything to read? Do family members TALK to one another? Do they tell stories? Does the child belong to a library? Read for pleasure?

The WCED plans to do all it can to mobilize and train people to work in communities on issues of family literacy. Our Teaching Assistant project, with 510 people employed to provide extra support in classrooms, might grow next year, for example, so we add into their contracts that they need to get out and visit the families of their classes and help the adults learn to read perhaps. Do your parents know exactly how to help their children? Have you tried training them to offer good support at home?

The question in my idea of "familyhood" is - how big is your literacy "family"? How do you grow it? "Families" typically are loving and they give to one another: we need to work out how to surround our learners with loving and knowledgeable "family members". We have community development workers, we have health clinics, social workers, student mentors from the tertiaries, there are learnerships and internships.

We have volunteer readers who are ready to get out to help schools. We have retired teachers and other professionals. We've got local librarians. I believe we just need to find creative ways to invite these people into our lives. Ladies and gentlemen, let's mobilize! We've got enough people who are literate to adopt those who are not literate and help them. We are not the ONLY solution to our children's problems. Let's have a literacy revolution! Or a literacy revival!

To conclude: like it or not language means access, it means jobs, it means accuracy of communication, it means that you and I together in this room, can build up a shared vision because we use words to "make and negotiate meaning" - to use the specific outcome from Curriculum 2005.

I am convinced that we can chalk up a massive literacy breakthrough in this province if we have "faith" (that's the partner of "hope" after all). Maybe the social capital, the familyhood I've been talking about - maybe that's the "love" in that famous trilogy. Let's commit to these things today. I'm really keen for us to try to test the power of making "pledges".

I'm going to end with my MEC-pledge made at your conference: I pledge to do all I can to further this "literacy familyhood" to help set up the conditions for success at a macro-level.

I wish you a very successful and enriching conference and look forward to hearing all about it and then seeing the ways that it feeds in to your classroom practice and your learners' results.

Thank you

For enquiries:
Gert Witbooi
Media Liaison Officer
Office of the MEC for Education
Western Cape
Tel: 021 467 2523
Fax: 021 425 5689
Email: gwitbooi@pgwc.gov.za
Visit our website: http://wced.wcape.gov.za