New Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube. (Photo by Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
It would be irresponsible to change the schooling system under the new government which was sworn in halfway into the academic year, new Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said in her 2024-25 budget speech.
Gwarube, the former chief whip of the Democratic Alliance (DA), stressed that she would “not implement policies or programmes without evidence of their value in our concerted efforts to improve the quality outcomes of the system”.
The DA and other critics have previously slammed the performance of the basic education department, saying that the high matriculation pass rates often touted by Gwarube’s predecessor, Angie Motshekga, belied the poor quality of learning and high dropout rate in state schools.
In her speech on Monday, Gwarube said she would review the National Senior Certificate pass rate and other national systems to improve literacy and numeracy skills.
“While there have been some improvements, our literacy and numeracy rates remain unacceptably low, [therefore] my team and I will obsess about getting learners at all levels in the system to be able to read for meaning,” she said.
Gwarube said she would establish an advisory council representative of the basic education system as soon as possible. “This council, once up and running, will be an invaluable resource in ensuring that our efforts to strengthen our education system are targeted, evidence-based and informed by best practice.”
Gwarube said the projection set by the department under her predecessor for a school governing body effectiveness of 50% of schools for 2024-25 was unacceptably low.
“This is nearly 30 years after the South African Schools’ Act was enacted. Given the critical role of school governing bodies in relation to much of what our public schools do, this is simply not good enough. We must do better,” she said.
Education experts say school governing bodies are key to shaping the educational environment — from the curriculum and school policies to infrastructure management and staff appointments.
According to the education department, schools with high school governing body participation have reported an average 20% higher pass rate than those with lower involvement.
School governing body elections ran from 1 to 31 March 2024 in all public schools. By law, the department is required to hold elections every three years.
The medium-term expenditure framework budget allocation for the department for 2024-25 is R32.3 billion, an increase of 7.4% from the 2023-24 overall allocation.
The overall allocation for conditional grants is R26.041 billion – an increase of 10.4% from 2023-24. This includes an allocation of R13.7 billion to advance school infrastructure delivery as part of the Sanitation Appropriate for Education Initiative.
Parents, schools and civil society organisations have raised the alarm about the department not tackling dilapidated school infrastructure.
In a statement after Gwarube’s appointment, rights group Equal Education said exploring mechanisms to improve the quality and efficiency of infrastructure delivery for the sector across the country “is something that should be prioritised”.
The department’s 2013 School Infrastructure Regulations provided clear deadlines — November 2016, 2020, 2023 and 2030 — by which public schools should be provided with basic infrastructure such as water, electricity, classrooms, toilets and fencing. It also required that all schools constructed from inappropriate materials such as mud, asbestos, metal or wood be fixed by November 2016.
But the department has on numerous occasions failed to meet deadlines to provide appropriate school facilities, according to Equal Education.
On Monday Gwarube said she planned to review the recently published norms and standards for school infrastructure to “drive meaningful improvements”.
“We cannot have learners in danger of drowning in pit toilets or learning in inappropriate structures, 30 years into our democracy,” she said.
In June, Motshekga signed a revised prescription of the School Infrastructure Regulations, which give provincial education departments the authority to determine how school infrastructure projects should be prioritised and when they should be completed.