WCED Senior Officials
Members of the Standing Committee
Educators
Members of the Publishers' Association of South Africa
Representatives of Teacher Unions, School Governing Bodies, Representative Council of Learners, Tertiary Institutions, Service Providers
Representatives of the Media and of Civil Society
Learners
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Boys and Girls
This launch today marks a personal high point for me: I have declared that addressing low Literacy and Numeracy performance levels is my number one priority. The public launch of the strategy is another step in our serious effort to turn the situation around.
It is not the beginning nor is it the end of the battle. It represents a stage where we have added new impetus, focus and co-ordination to our work. We do not promise quick-fix solutions but a strategy which, over time, will yield results.
I want to make 3 points about the context into which this strategy is born
- Testing is showing slight improvements already
- The strategy we launch today is the first ever WCED combined Literacy and Numeracy strategy
- Human capital development, skills and employment: the broader context
Our learners are already showing improved scores in our system-wide provincial testing. Grade 6 of 2005 has a 7% improvement in Literacy scores and 2% in Numeracy since the previous tests in 2003. However, with only 42% of learners scoring at the required level for Literacy and 17% for Numeracy we still have a long way to go. Today we are announcing our plan of action.
It builds on the work which has been done already but also directs the full energies of the officials of this department onto a programme to turn things around, so that our children are not prisoners of their inability to read, write and calculate but are empowered to direct their own affairs and realise their full potential as the actors have just depicted for us.
The WCED has been mandated by the premier and the provincial government to define, and then to lead, the provincial human capital development strategy, launched earlier this year.
There is no shortage of information about the demands of the skills' challenge. The national programmes of "Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative" (ASGISA) and the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition" (JIPSA) outline the parameters and identify the array of approaches crisply.
The WCED needs to ensure that every learner can lay claim to a solid General Education and Training foundation. Statistics tell us that it is our young people (aged 15 - 24) who are unemployed (over 50% of them) and also that employment prospects are directly linked to levels of qualification.
The national systemic research and other studies point to the direct links between deprived socio-economic status and poor scholastic performance. The research exposes the poor scores in remote rural areas as well. Poverty and the need to earn money are contributors to the high drop out rate where in the Western Cape , as in other provinces, we experience a 50% drop out rate.
Half of the learners who start Grade 10 do not complete Grade 12. We have to reverse this tendency. If our learners at Grade 6 level are so far behind their age norms then it stands to reason that that skills gap will grow. Our dropout figures might well be linked to the reality that those young people simply can't cope with the academic demands at the Grade 10 level.
Our focus on equity and redress through the further extension of no-fee schools over the next two years, our efforts to deal with infrastructure backlogs and school safety must complement our strategy.
We launch this strategy confidently, ladies and gentlemen. It contains not only a plain exposition of the key theoretical underpinnings and an indication of the three critical leverage points of the strategy but also a detailed analysis of 6 critical success factors and the practical steps to be taken to turn the situation around.
We feel that we have done our homework. The design is there: now we need to put all the building blocks in place, all the cement, the scaffolding and the roof. We must keep the light shining into all the corners and ensure that we have an optimistic and skilled team of builders.
- The strategy provides a theoretical framework
The first thing our new strategy does is spell out a theoretical framework for teachers and teaching. The new curriculum, the National Curriculum Statement, for the first time stipulates the specific assessment standards for each grade.
This means that teachers now have a good map for the skills needed and the required pace of development. In other words, the curriculum itself is the first part of the useful framing for a practising teacher.
The strategy we are launching today has three helpful theoretical pointers for teachers:
- It provides a careful rationale for a constructivist approach in the classroom - one where the best learning takes place when active learners have constructed meaning in a well-designed learning environment.
- For Literacy teaching the strategy spells out the provincial approach to learning how to read (with phonics explicitly taught but embedded in the whole language method).
- For numeracy teaching the strategy stresses that drill is a notable feature of the automation required - once concepts are clear - to help with fluency in numeracy.
- The strategy offers 3 key solutions to the Literacy and Numeracy backlogs
- 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.
Solution 1: Develop and support Teachers
The kind of learning turnaround that this province needs has to be driven by teachers who are also "driven".
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. World-wide there are discrepancies between the intended curriculum and that which is actually taught in the classrooms.
This is particularly the case during curriculum changeovers. I believe that the implementation of the NCS is beginning to reach completion. Our grade 8, 9 and 11 teachers received orientation in July this year.
Next year it will be the turn of our grade 12 educators. By 2008 our grade 12's across the country will write matric in terms of the new curriculum. With curriculum bedded down it is critical that our focus shifts firmly to content, classroom practice and support.
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 training that we envisage for teachers will be very carefully designed. Predominantly we are looking at certificated courses offered through tertiary institutions.
This is an expensive option and not one to be achieved overnight. However we know that we must undertake it. Our Cape Teaching Institute residential courses will play a pivotal role as well. In this regard our teacher unions are key partners. Consultation with teacher unions on all aspects of teacher development will take place.
Solution 2: Work at a systems level to attend to the problems surrounding the questions of mother-tongue and learning
The first target of the language-in-education transformation plan is 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.
We are making our children turn their backs on their own languages: parents are currently opting for what can be called "subtractive bilingualism" - where people "give up" their own languages for the perceived benefits of another one. We must remember that our country has a policy of additive bilingualism or even multilingualism.
This brings me to 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.
Apart from encouraging nation-building and enhancing the economic viability of our young citizens we want to grow language pride: "if others are learning my language then it helps me know that my language is also valued".
I firmly believe that paying proper attention to supporting learning through the mother-tongue and helping teachers to manage both this and making sure that their learners get excellent teaching of English as a second language will help make a major difference in the schools where learners are really struggling to meet the performance demands.
Solution 3: Advocacy/Community/Family Literacy
Why so much emphasis today on 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?
My challenge to all of us on this third solution is simple: we must network. I have huge respect for all that our teachers are trying to do. I know about their long hours and all the time spent planning, assessing and recording. I know about the work teachers do as social workers and care-givers.
My firm belief is that those of us inside the school system must be upfront about it and admit that we don't have to, or we CAN'T, provide all the solutions in our classrooms. We must ask what are the literacy levels in our 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? Do our parents know exactly how to help their children? Have we tried training them to offer good support at home?
While the classroom itself remains the key, because of the skills of the teacher and the resources of the school, I am calling today for the start of a provincial campaign which goes far beyond the classroom walls and which gathers momentum in families, communities and workplaces. I hope that the rallying call of "Each One Teach One" will be taken up in the media, in the homes and in the streets of our province.
I heard last week that 80% of the parents at one of our leading ex-DET primary schools - a school a few kilometers away - are illiterate. In that smoothly-operating school only 7.5% of the Grade 6's have the expected literacy levels for that grade and 0% for numeracy.
When we asked the principal how she would feel about getting literacy help for her parents she opened her arms wide and said "I would say 'COME!' I would say 'WELCOME!'".
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.
The question is - how big is our provincial literacy "family"? How can we 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 tertiary institutions, 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. We are currently relooking at the delivery of ABET in the province to meet the Human Capital targets of dramatically expanding the provision of ABET in the Western Cape.
Ladies and gentlemen, we need to mobilize. We've got enough people who are literate to assist in this campaign.
From today and until the end of August our call centre will be taking calls for volunteers to help with our literacy and numeracy campaign. Call 0800 45 46 47 to hand in your details. We will process the offers and be in touch with you in October to set up the operation. We know that there are many projects already under way. These need to be identified, assessed and integrated into our strategy.
Apart from the 3 solutions just listed (Teacher Development and Support, the Language-in-education Transformation Plan and the Family Literacy model) the strategy has, as a core, a further comprehensive set of 6 steps. I will just touch on them very briefly and urge you to study the detail in the strategy document.
- A pre-school programme
- Changes to classroom practice
- Learning and teaching support material
- Research
- Monitoring and support
- Co-ordination and sustainability
One cannot overstate the need to have a powerful and comprehensive pre-school strategy. To this end we have an ECD Task Team to ensure that all of the development and growth needed in this sector are properly handled.
This task team is working with our sister departments of Social Development, Health and also local government. We have already dramatically increased our resourcing to grade R provisioning and the development of the skills of care- givers and pre-school educators is the combined focus.
With ECD on the one hand, ABET on the other and a strong school system in between we must be poised to make a huge impact on the literacy and numeracy results in this province.
Our classrooms must be at the centre of our support. The strategy aims to provide support and mentoring to teachers in terms of lesson planning, the use of resources to enhance teaching and learning, management of diversity in the classroom and assessment practices and support for learners with special needs.
A reader needs books to read and learners need resources in their mother tongue and at an appropriate linguistic level to work from. We already have 100 reading books in each classroom in the province in Grades 1 - 6, our reading half hour is in place.
We also have flipcharts for the daily ten minutes of mental Maths. Schools also have Maths, Science and Technology Kits of manipulatives and equipment for developing these skills.
I'm pleased that the publishers are here in some numbers today as I believe that their role in providing reading materials and texts to support or guide classroom work is critical. I look forward to engaging with them as we roll out our language-in-education transformation plan.
We MUST undertake and benefit from research. The testing I have alluded to helps us to diagnose and intervene. Our partners, the NGOs and the tertiary institutions have spent years working in our schools: we need to tap into that wisdom. We will also need to research the impact of this very strategy that we are launching here today.
We must combine forces to fix things that are broken and celebrate things that work. The WCED is dedicating a team of 100 to the task of turning around the poor literacy and numeracy results in our schools. School themselves need to monitor their own proposed interventions. Progress and challenges will feature consistently on the agenda of TOPCO and Broad management.
Unless our interventions are SUSTAINABLE we are wasting people's time and spoiling their life chances. Who is it who would dare to do that?
I want to focus finally on two aspects: on target setting and on making this all happen.
Firstly, let's think about "Target Setting"
Anything in life which represents a shift from the norm needs target-setting. Think of a weight-loss campaign or a fitness programme for example:
We need to set precise targets (getting advice from experts about what is realistic, about pacing and about all the sub-skills we will need - we have to learn "what it takes" to meet the targets - in other words:
We must "walk the walk" ourselves, we make our mistakes, we take corrective measures,
We get professional help if we need it,
We work on motivation, we remain confident,
We get MORE help or DIFFERENT kinds of help.
We announce our targets to our friends and family once we are sure what they are: we know we're going to need moral and practical support
We need to RECORD/TRACK and GRAPH our progress
We announce our success or our winning results.
And finally, what about "Making this all happen"?
Our various tests, particularly the provincial ones which are written by all of our schools, give us good diagnostic information. In the next few months, each of our targeted schools - in other words those registering the poorest performance levels - will be helped to set realistic targets.
They will be required to define the targets, announce them and put all reasonable measures in place to meet them. The SGB must be part of setting this target at school level. As we begin 2007 the targets at school and district level will be in place.
On the side of the WCED we will commit to putting all the weight of our expertise and time at the disposal of our targeted schools so that together we can make a difference. We will monitor. We will support.
Our team of 100 officials will be dedicated to the service of the schools and will maintain strong and supportive links with them. The strategic intervention is led by Mr Brian Schreuder himself: the fact that we have assigned this role to a Deputy Director General is indication of the level of commitment.
On the school side schools will be asked to sign up for a Literacy and Numeracy Turnaround Plan. There are clear steps laid out for compliance and for all the layers of planning, management and monitoring.
In the classrooms the teachers will manage their planning, their application of the theoretical underpinnings, their resources and their teaching under the guidance of the trained specialists.
Today, we are calling for a renewed commitment from every WCED official, every teacher, the leadership of our teacher unions and governing bodies and from our learners and parents.
I am convinced that if we place literacy and numeracy at the centre of our personal priorities , we can win this battle. Ongoing partnerships with NGO's, CBO's , Higher Education , sister departments in the Provincial Government and Local Government itself are critical to this initiative. All of us must be part of this strategy. We call on you to pledge your support.
I appeal to all of you and your constituencies to make a commitment to work towards making a difference. We have circulated copies of our pledge document. In a moment Freda Brock of the Early Childhood Development sector is going to hand me the first few signed pledge documents. If you took one and want to hand it over, signed, today, then that would be wonderful.
If you want to sign one now and pass it along the row to the end we will collect it from you to put in the pledge registry. We want to grow the numbers of signatories. Once we have a number of signatories I will hand the set to the Premier. It will include my own pledge and those of my cabinet colleagues.
Together. Saam. Sibanye. We CAN make the difference and we will ensure that the Western Cape is indeed a learning home for all.
Thank you.
Enquiries:
Gert Witbooi
Media Liaison Officer
Office of the MEC for Education
Western Cape
Tel: 021 467 2523
Fax: 021 425 5689
Visit our website: http://wced.wcape.gov.za
