Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
There are many imminent and distinguished scholars and individuals from all over the country and the continent, I want to welcome you to Cape Town, and I trust that you will enjoy the hospitality and natural beauty of our city.
I am sure you will agree with me that investment in education is essential to the development of any society, its people and its economy. And I want to quote the greatest South African statesman of all time, who said the following:
"Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that the child of a farm worker can become the president of a great nation." That person, which we in South Africa hold very dear, is of course Nelson Rohlihlahla Mandela.
Seven years ago, global leaders under the forum of the United Nations agreed on a vision for the future - a world with less poverty, hunger and disease, greater survival prospects for mothers and their infants, better educated children, equal opportunities for women, and a healthier environment; a world in which developed and developing countries worked in partnership for the betterment of all.
This vision took the shape of the eight Millennium Development Goals, which are providing countries around the world with a framework for development, and time-bound targets by which progress can be measured.
This vision is based on the conviction that quality education for all is achievable, and by the concern for the immense costs of failure in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, exclusion from education will translate into growing poverty, inequality and deprivation.
Thus the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by 189 nations; of which goals and targets were set to be achieved by the year 2015. The UN has recognized that education is critical to the attainment of the MMDGs.
Two of the eight MDGs pertain to education, namely universal primary completion and gender parity in primary and secondary schooling. Moreover, girls' education has a direct and proven impact on the goals related to child and reproductive health and environmental sustainability. [www.un.org/millenniumgoals].
In a report on the MDGs to the United Nations last year, José Antonio Ocampt, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs noted that net enrolment ratios in primary education have increased to eight percent in the developing world, ranging from nine percent in Latin America and the Caribbean to 64 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.
It said that although the sub-Saharan region has made significant progress since 1990/1991 in Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali and Niger, fewer than half the children of primary-school age are enrolled in school. [http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/]
The Under Secretary-General's report on 80 developing countries noted that 18 percent of children in urban areas do not attend school. Rural areas with larger populations of children account for 82 percent of children who are not in school in developing countries, including Sub-Saharan Africa.
The report says: "Globally, more than one in five girls of primary-school age are not in school, compared to about one in six boys. Of particular concern is the wide gender gap in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, where almost 80 per cent of the world's out-of-school children live."
In terms of promoting gender equality and empowering women in all levels of education, the report says that job prospects for youth have declined in most regions. "Youth now represent close to half of the world's 192 million jobless people.
"In many countries, they are more than three times as likely as adults to be seeking work. Without sufficient employment opportunities, many young people grow discouraged and feel worthless. This presents an especially urgent challenge for developing countries, home to eight per cent of the world's youth.
"Young women often have the most difficulty entering the labour market and retaining decent jobs. In many countries, they are forced to emigrate in search of work and face the risk of being trafficked or coerced into labour."
I agree with the UN Secretary-General, who says that youth are our most valuable asset, and, as such, must be integrated into the labour market, especially those from underprivileged households. "This is important for future growth and for stopping the intergenerational transmission of poverty," he says in his report.
According to the World Bank African Development Indicators 2005 report, the countries of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean are on course to fulfill many of the Millenium Deveopment Goals. However, few African countries are likely to meet most of them.
With nearly 700 million people in 47 countries, Sub-Saharan Africa continues to present the world with its most formidable development challenge. Africa is home to 34 of the world's 48 poorest countries.
The average income, excluding the Republic of South Africa, is only US$342 per person. From 1981 to 2001, the number of Africans living in poverty doubled, from 164 million to 314 million. The report, notes that "there are, however, considerable variations in the prospects of individual African countries".
It further states: "Those that have implemented sound economic policies and improved systems of governance have seen an acceleration in growth and poverty reduction and are likely to make significant headway in the future."
Only about 80 developing countries have built sufficient schools to place all of their primary-age children, but only about 27 of those countries retain at least 95 percent of the age group through to completion of primary education.
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals, says the report, will require a sharpened focus on economic growth. The current growth rate has not been sufficient to reduce poverty substantially.
Despite progress in some countries, overall growth in Africa has averaged about three percent, compared to the minimum of five percent needed to keep the number of poor from rising and the seven percent needed to achieve the goal of halving poverty by 2015.
Central to the objective of continental growth, are greater investments in education, health, and rural development, accompanied by improvements in the delivery of services to the poor.
Each year nearly 1 million African pupils lose a teacher to the HIV-Aids epidemic. About 150,000 African children die per month as a result of malaria, the "silent Tsunami." Public intervention, which could prevent this, will have to be a substantial effort, says the report.
According to the Millennium Development Indicators report, education trends are somewhat more favorable, with a steady fall in illiteracy, from 42 percent in 1997 to 35 percent in 2003. The gross primary enrollment rate at 96 percent has recovered and now exceeds its 1980 level of 80 percent.
In 1986 the IMF and World Bank launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, with the aim of ensuring that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage.
A little more than two years ago British Prime Minister Tony Blair initiated the Commission for Africa consisting of 17 members, of which nine from Africa, all working in their individual and personal capacities. Our own Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is part of this Commission.
In a report to the 2005 G-8 Glen Eagles Summit in Scotland, led by Blair, this Commission proposed a coherent package of measures to develop a strong and prosperous Africa. The report proposed a partnership between Africa and the developed world, which takes into account Africa's diversity and circumstances.
A significant part of the deal, was the cancellation of African debt. The redirection of resources was put to good use; for example:
[www.data.org.za]
- In Benin, 54% of the money saved through debt relief has been spent on health including rural primary health care and HIV programmes.
- In Tanzania, debt relief enabled the government to abolish primary school fees, leading to a 66% increase in attendance.
- After Mozambique was granted debt relief, it was able to offer all children free immunisation.
- In Uganda, debt relief led to 2.2 million people gaining access to clean water.
It is interesting to note that, according to a World Bank Fact Sheet on Africa, the country with the highest adult literacy rate is the Seychelles (92 percent); and the lowest is Mali (19 percent). The country with the highest net primary school enrollment rate is Seychelles, at 100 percent while the lowest is Djibouti, 33 percent.
The country with the highest primary-school pupil-teacher ratio is the Republic of Congo, with 83 pupils per teacher. The country with the lowest primary-school pupil-teacher ratio is the Seychelles, with 14 pupils per teacher.[http://web.worldbank.org]
In pursuit of the UN MDGs, the World Education Forum, which convened in Dakar, Senegal in April 2000, adopted the Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments. In doing so, its participants reaffirmed the vision of the World Declaration on Education in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990.
More than 1,100 participants from 164 countries identified six key education goals, which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. [http://www.unesco.org/education/]
The six Dakar goals are the following:
(1) expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children;(2) ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality;
(3) ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes;
(4) achieving a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults;
(5) eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls' full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality;
(6) improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognised and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.
Providing access to education to all children all over the world, I think is a constant challenge to us as leaders in government and civil society, especially for large numbers of children in remote, rural areas of especially the African continent. High levels of poverty and continuing conflicts add to the pressures.
Ladies and Gentlemen; our continent and country have its own set of challenges to overcome if we are to achieve the six Dakar goals by 2015. However, I believe that in the last twelve years of democracy we have made great strides in the reconstruction of South Africa and Africa.
In pursuit of the UN Millennium Development Goals, I am proud to say that we have successfully united 19 different education departments; we have increased the number of successful black and women graduates; and the transformation process of our curriculum development is reaching stability and maturity.
But whilst we are proud of our achievements, we are also the first to acknowledge the continuing challenges, especially in respect of: equity and redress; the drop-out rates (50%); the levels of literacy and numeracy; the performance of our learners in the subjects of maths and science; teacher support and development; and learner behaviour and parental involvement in the education system.
Our main national agenda is to create work and fight poverty. To this effect our President Thabo Mbeki has called on all of us to work hard in growing the economy with six percent, to halve unemployment in the next decade.
As you know, our country has been awarded the rights to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup. This has massive implications in terms of infrastructural investment and job opportunities.
Experts and economists predict that in the run-up to 2010, we are going to have to produce at least 13,000 engineers per annum to cope with the expected economic development boom. However our local engineering council is registering just above 3,000 per annum currently. Our education system therefore has a fundamental role to play in addressing the skills gap.
In building a better life for all our people, our Premier of the Western Cape, which is one of nine provinces of South Africa, has articulated the vision of our provincial government as a Home for All.
To arrive at this vision, we have adopted an economic development strategy, which we refer to as Ikapa Elihlumayo, which means "Growing and Sharing the Cape". This strategy is underpinned by five major sub-strategies - Infrastructural Development, Spatial Development, Micro Economic Development, Social Capital Development, and Human Capital Development.
As the MEC for the Western Cape education, or Provincial Minister, I am responsible for the development and implementation of the Human Capital Development Strategy, which is about producing young citizens with sound knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to grow and share the Cape.
With this strategy we want to build young citizens to realise their full potential, lead fulfilling lives, contribute to building their communities, contribute to the growth of our economy and the continent, and be internationally competitive.
Therefore, our Human Capital Development Strategy contains four key strands, and they are:
(1) Improving the conditions of education by ensuring that our schools are well-equipped and well-managed to create conditions conducive to excellence in all our schools;
(2) Working to create a safer and healthier educational environment by targeting the symptoms of social disintegration and pathology (crime, drugs, violence, gangsterism, etc.) and ensuring the general health of our school population by promoting healthy habits and dealing with the issues of HIV and AIDS;
(3) Improving the quality of education by focusing on the provision of relevant curricula, emphasizing classroom management and innovation, introducing mechanisms for teacher support in the classroom, and focusing on teacher competence and continuous development; and
(4) Creating opportunities for skills and qualifications acquisition, through various programmes and institutions.
Our drive to improve the quality of education represents the core of the strategy, therefor much attention will focus on:
- Expansion of early childhood development, especially at Grade R level. It is here that we believe that the foundation of the core values and attitudes to learning and life will be laid. These values and attitudes relate to national pride, (self)-discipline, a strong work-ethic and self-confidence;
- A strong general education in the Foundation Phase, with an emphasis on literacy and numeracy;
- Strong general education in Grades 4 - 9 with an emphasis on:
- Language (communication) skills,
- Mathematics, science and technology
- Career guidance - Introduction to ICT to prepare learners for the knowledge economy
- Increase the number of matric endorsements in the FET (Schools) sector, to improve access to higher education. In this regard, we will work with the higher education sector to provide courses of study that will contribute to our human capital development and that feeds into the projected economic growth sectors that are recommended through the MEDS.
Meanwhile, we will seek to create opportunities for acquiring special skills and qualifications through various programmes and institutions, by mobilizing the potential of SETA-supported programmes and government's own initiatives, enabling the development of skills, qualifications and employment through learnerships and internships.
With the establishment of Schools of Skill, and once again mobilizing the potential of the SETAs, we wish to create learning opportunities for those learners who either do not have the desire or the aptitude to continue up to or beyond Grade 9.
Our Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) sector provides opportunities for skills and further study for those who have been denied the opportunity for any kind of education.
The FET College sector provides a range of vocational courses informed by the Macro Economic Development Strategy research, or through employer-initiated programmes. We are making available bursary loans to students who wish to continue their studies in this sector.
Ladies and Gentlemen; I believe that a combination of a solid general education foundation and high quality relevant skills-based programmes, we can impact positively on the longer-term economic growth prospects of the province, while attending to the short-term skills and entrepreneurship demands and opportunities of the current economy.
With these few words I once again want to welcome you, and although I am not able to stay for the duration of the conference, I am looking forward to its deliberations, but most importantly, that its outcomes in the long term will impact positively on especially the poorest of the poor.
I thank you.
