Premier Ebrahim Rasool
MEC Tasneem Essop and my fellow Cabinet colleagues
Director-General Dr Gilbert Lawrence and Heads of Department
Prof Shirley Walters, the Chairperson of the LCF and other Members of the Steering Committee
Icons of the LCF
Honoured Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls
Premier, MECs, DG, Icons, Learning Cape Steering Committee, Heads of Department, Honoured Guests, Members of the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls
It's a great thrill to be here at last - a lot of work has gone into this fair and into the whole concept of a Learning Province!
Our country is steadily finding its feet after many decades of what Ngugi wa Thiong'o calls "colonizing the mind". The adults in this room know that we were subject for most of our lives to a set of apartheid 'organising principles' that almost tricked some of us into thinking this was the natural order of things.
And that our elders who, perhaps because of that apartheid, were denied the kinds of education they deserved, might (to use the terms of Paulo Freire) "call themselves ignorant and say the 'professor' is the one who has knowledge and to whom they should listen".
I want to talk about learning in a particular way today. Because Freire goes on to say, about those unschooled elders, "Almost never do they realize that they, too, 'know things' they have learned in their relations with the world." Freire distinguishes between what he calls "simply learning" and "knowing".
Part of my argument is that our elders are also our professors: we need to find ways of working that in to our collective wisdom. This room today is filled with teachers or mentors from a variety of what I will loosely call "institutes of learning" - both big and small, formal and informal.
Most of us, under the legislation which we are all appointed to implement, are busy preparing students for certification of some kind. My question to them is: are you confident that your students are busy learning how to "know" or are you also being tricked into the narrow "learning" is "doing" trap that entices us so sweetly? We should at the same time not fall prey to the mantra of some who argue against the imperative of ensuring that our education institutions in fact produce the hard skills needed to grow our provincial and national economy.
To do so robs our young people the opportunity of finding work. It must be possible for us to produce the skills needed in much greater numbers while embracing the values and attitudes which will unite us in our quest to make our province a home for all, in which all enjoy access to learning opportunities but accept that without equity and redress, this home will only be half- built.
Dewey states, "the subject matter of education consists of bodies of information and of skills that have been worked out in the past; therefore, the chief business of the school is to transmit them to the next generation." My argument is that this province will only be a Learning Province in the truest sense of that vision when we do far more than "transmit" knowledge like this. Of course learning is a cross-generational or inter- and intra-generational thing.
We can't wish away the faults in our past: our children need to "know" these and know how to deal with the faults in their world and how to thrive. As a province we need to be something like what is called a Learning Organisation which is sometimes defined as "one in which people at all levels, individuals and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about."
After the brutal stabbing of Cheslyn Jones from Manenberg High, that community has come together and said: "Proudly Manenberg - a place of learning not of crime". Through the efforts of the community the WCED and the SAPS, an atmosphere of peace has been created for the last 10 days.
So much so that our principal Mr Brown told me that for the first time he was able to come in from patrol outside, download his mails and make contact with his fellow 37 principals from the Klipfontein Corridor and those he had met at Birmingham. This atmosphere must prevail.
We must tap into the assimilated knowledge that we have, use the inter-generational and accumulated wisdom, hold hands and must learn, must evolve, must adapt; must grow. Our young learners are not blank slates and our elders are not empty vessels.
Amongst us we must know what to do to enable this province to thrive. We must claim our space, all of us, and know that we need not be victims: we might have started late but there are places to go and things to do!
On a very practical and immediate level we need to crack the code and find out why we are losing half of our Grade 10's before they matriculate. Maybe this enormous assembly of our learners over the next few days will be the tide that brings about that change. Maybe we will make some famous introductions right here and change young lives forever.
Let me inform those that don't yet know - 2006 will see the first year of the introduction of the national curriculum statement for the FET band. All grade 10's will have to do seven subjects, four of which are compulsory. Firstly maths literacy or mathematics, secondly life orientation, thirdly the language of learning and teaching and fourthly a first additional language.
Every grade 10 learner will then choose 3 other subjects. These grade 10's will then write the "new matric", or national senior certificate in 2008. Mr Premier I am proud to announce that we are going to be taking another small step towards promoting mother tongue education and multi-lingualism in our province.
We support the call by Minister Pandor that every learner must be given the opportunity to study an indigenous African language. This presents a huge challenge. My dream is that every learner in our province learns isiXhosa, Afrikaans and English. At our language colloquia on 12th August, we want to plan the first practical steps towards this goal.
I'm excited that members of our Representative Councils of Learners will be here tomorrow, as a precursor to our September launch of the provincial association of RCLs. I'm happy that they will workshop the idea of themselves as Leaders of Learning and that they will meet with many of HIV/ AIDS Peer educators based at our schools.
And, in the light of the ongoing serious problems we are facing with racism, bullying, gangsterism, and drugs, I'm thrilled that this expo is hosting a seminar for school leaders on "Managing Diversity" - also tomorrow.
As part of our commitment to enthusiastically celebrating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Freedom Charter, we are delighted that our learners are being helped to investigate the stories of some of our heroes via a Ten Book Series on the Freedom fighters, written by Chris van Wyk and published by Awareness Publishing.
The First National Bank is here to make a symbolic handover of a pack of books - part of a generous donation to schools in our province. Principals of the 12 urban schools due to receive full sets for their schools are here in the room as well to celebrate with us. Please welcome Mr Ivor Jones, of FNB.
We thank you for your donation and its symbolic representation of how partnering can work. In conclusion I want to make the point that we're essentially all part of one whole circle: ECD, ABET, you, me, school, college, providers, business, parents, labour.
And it all makes sense inside the economy that we're trying to grow, inside the embrace of the arms of this province and under the WCED banner of a "Learning Home for all", which is what we're trying to provide.
On behalf of the education department I want to thank my colleagues in Economic Development for their initiation of this project, which the education department is now committed to trying to grow. I want to thank all of you providers in education for coming to this fair, for uniting to give guidance to our learners, young and old.
Thanks to the teachers for bringing their youngsters and to the principals for embracing this opportunity. I think that our visit here will be just the inspiration that we will need to take us through the next few days of a Lekgotla under the leadership of Premier Rasool, during which time we will be continuing the debate of how we can best become a learning province, forever.
Thank you
For enquiries, contact Gert Witbooi: 082 550 3938, or gwitbooi@pgwc.gov.za. Gert Witbooi
Media Secretary
Office of the MEC for Education
Western Cape
Tel: 021 467 2523
Fax: 021 425 5689
Visit our website: http://wced.wcape.gov.za
The Western Cape - A Home for All
INtshona Koloni - iKhaya loMntu wonke
Die Wes-Kaap - 'n Tuiste vir Almal
