Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very happy that we can hand over the first of 32 Early Childhood Development start-up kits for sites in our disadvantaged communities.
I am happy because I am very passionate and committed to see that ECD becomes an important weapon in the struggle against functional illiteracy, and thus poverty.
Last year, after this new Provincial Government was sworn in, the Premier launched a 100-days-delivery campaign. As education we had to complete the building of, and move learners of the Usasazo High School in Maitland, to Khayelitsha.
Secondly, we had to make sure that at least 50 per cent of twelve schools still without electricity, must have been electrified. I am proud to say we have delivered on all of this, exceeding our targets.
Similarly, after the Cabinet Lekgotla in January this year, the Premier has instructed us to deliver before the end-of-April, the following:
- Start-up kits for 30 Grade R sites in poor areas
- 80 Bursaries for Maths and Science Teachers
- Sod turning for seven new schools
- 320 high schools to have computer labs
So, ladies and gentlemen, you can see the President and the Premier are putting huge pressure on us. They are doing this because they are concerned with the abject poverty in which the majority of our population still finds itself in.
In my inaugural Budget Speech last year, I said: Siza kuyitshintsha le Ntshona Koloni! Ons gaan die Wes-Kaap verander! We are going to change the Western Cape!
Premier Ebrahim Rasool put the vision of this Provincial Government clearly, when he said we need to build this province as a Home for All. In order to build this Home for All, we have adopted an economic development strategy - Ikapa Elihlumayo - which means "Growing and Sharing the Cape".
We have some serious challenges in providing the knowledge, skills, values and attitude for iKapa Elihlumayo. As early as 2000, the WCED initiated its first diagnostic testing of learners on a small scale. It was later broadened to include all schools across the province in both grades 3 and 6.
We are all more or less familiar with the results, and therefor judging from it, it is clear that ECD must become an increasingly important part of our strategy to build the human resource personnel for Ikapa Elihlumayo.
Currently, we have 45,000 learners in Grade R, with an anticipated increase to 80,000 by 2014. The projected growth of 35,000 learners implies an increase in enrolment at a rate of 3,500 per annum over the next ten years.
In addition to ensuring the availability of Grade R programmes, other critical challenges that need to be addressed, include the general lack of access to services; the poor educational quality of many of the existing services; and the lack of nutritional support.
The challenge of ensuring that the learning outcomes of Grade R National Curriculum Statement are taught and acquired by learners is perhaps the most critical. This reinforces the need for effective educator training and the provision of requisite equipment and readers.
In media reports last year, Daleen Klop, a well-known Researcher and Speech-Language Therapist, says she has studied 400 children a year - all from disadvantaged homes in and around Stellenbosch - for five years.She
found that most children "started school with no idea of what a book is, nor any experience of word play or rhyming".
She found that the children arrive at school "with nothing in place to facilitate learning, and to expect any Grade 1 teacher to make up for what has been lacking for six years, is impossible".
Submerged into a curriculum geared for and based on the assumption of "normal" development, she says, the children are disadvantaged from the word go.
I could not agree more with her. We all know that there is a direct link between poverty and educational levels. Parents who have to battle to put food on the table every day, and who cannot read themselves, are not going to read to the child every evening.
The early years of a child's life are crucial for the development of fantasy, imagination and creativity. Therefor, children who have never seen a book and never been read stories to by their parents, will inevitably be at a disadvantage when they start formal schooling.
We must face up to the reality that, of the 4,45 million people in the Western Cape Province, we have 330,000 adults with NO schooling; 600,000 have less than five year's schooling; and 200,000 have less than seven year's schooling.
Thus, according to UNESCO, we in the Western Cape have a functionally illiterate population of about 1.13 million people - in other words, all those with less than seven year's schooling or none at all. This is 36 per cent of the Western Cape!
Considering that the province's unemployment rate is about 27,5 per cent, and that 50 per cent of our children grow up in single parent families, it becomes clear that the 36 per cent of adults who are functionally illiterate, form the greatest part of the poor and the unemployed.
Those who are employed are mostly employed at the lowest levels, doing menial tasks, producing communities unable to escape the cycle of poverty.
Poverty and the daily grind for survival are the harsh reality in the daily routine of a significant number of the poor. Single parents are obliged to go to work.
Add to this the number of families where both parents are obliged to seek employment and you will understand that there is an enormous number of young children who, needs be, must be left in the care of someone other than a parent.
Those that can afford day care or pre-schools will place their children in institutions, which provide safe and stimulating developmental care. They can afford properly trained care-givers.
Poverty stricken parents are forced to leave their children in the care of adults who are unemployed or retired, and who are in all likelihood illiterate and are only capable of child minding activities rather than able to provide stimulating developmental care to their charges.
If no adults are available the young child will be left in the care of family members or, as is often the case, an older sibling - usually a girl child who should, herself, be in school. And therefor we have to break this cycle.
The levels of numeracy and literacy and the performance of our children in the General Education and Training Band, are important indicators of whether they are ready to acquire sophisticated skills in FET and Higher Education.
The man objectives of our Human Resource Development Strategy are therefor to ensure an integrated approach to the physical, social and cognitive development of all 0 to 4 year olds living in the province. We must provide high quality Grade R tuition to all five year olds so that they are ready for school learning.
For this reason we are hosting a provincial education summit next week - 23 and 24 March - as part of developing our human resource strategy to Grow and Share the Cape - as per instructions from the Premier.
And one of the biggest challenges this conference must begin to address, is ECD. Although the number of pre-primary schools offering Grade R has grown steadily in recent years, thanks to changes in our subsidy policy, we must do more.
We are already working together with our colleagues in Social Services, Public Works, Health, Local Government, NGO's and CBO's and our thousands of selfless ECD workers, to ensure an integrated strategy to make the provisioning of Grade R tuition for all five-year-olds possible by the year 2014.
The launch of this special start-up kits to support teaching and learning in Grade R will help learners to achieve the outcomes expected of them in the Revised National Curriculum for Grade R, and will help teachers to ensure that the children have been properly assessed.
This is in line with the goals of the National Early Childhood Development Policies and Programmes, in ensuring that our children develop their full potential as active, responsible and fulfilled citizens who can play a constructive role in the economy.
The kits contain materials for about 30 activities, including books, puzzles, building blocks, puppets and pegboards, among other items.
The equipment will enable our educators to cover all the outcomes required for Grade R described in the three Learning Programmes, i.e. Literacy, Numeracy and Life Skills, under the Backbone Learning Outcomes focussing on the assessment standards for Grade R.
The materials include a manual in the language of teaching and learning of the majority of the learners at each school. The manual is also available in all the three official languages of the province on a compact disc.
The manual provides advice on how to use and maintain the equipment, how to set up an appropriate classroom environment, along with guidelines on how to set up an inventory for managing the materials.
Each activity is designed to support teaching and learning of outcomes required by the curriculum.
These outcomes include listening for information, communicating confidently, reading, writing, thinking and reasoning, as well as using sounds, words and grammar to create sentences, counting and calculating, measuring, developing physically and showing understanding for diverse cultures and religions.
The WCED plans to distribute the kits to primary schools in all regions of the Western Cape, including rural and urban areas, as it seeks to expand access to quality Grade R schooling in the province, particularly in poor communities.
The provincial government's efforts to expand access to ECD and Grade R form part of the province's Human Capital Development Strategy, to ensure an integrated approach to the physical, social and cognitive development of children aged nought to four.
The strategy also aims to ensure access to high quality Grade R tuition to all five-year-olds so that they are ready for school learning. The kits will contribute significantly towards achieving this goal.
Lastly ladies and gentlemen, if indeed we are going to grow and share the Cape, if indeed we are going to build a Learning Home for All our Children, we must continue to work in partnerships.
Thank you
For enquiries, contact Gert Witbooi: 082 550 3938gwitbooi@pgwc.gov.za.
