Basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube plans to establish a consultative forum consisting of education sector representatives, trade unions, school governing bodies and others to undertake a fundamental review of the school curriculum.
Gwarube said in an interview with Business Day on Thursday that establishing such a consultative body was provided for in legislation and was something she wanted to initiate quite soon. It would look at the education system, have terms of reference and time frames, and produce a report with recommendations.
“The education system hasn’t enjoyed an overhaul in its entirety since 1996. There has obviously been legislation which has in a piecemeal fashion sought to rectify parts of the system, but the system needs to be looked at in its entirety in order to evaluate where it is weakest and where it is not,” she said.
Teachers are our greatest resource and I am going to make sure that their interests are looked after
— Siviwe Gwarube, minister of basic education
The forum would make recommendations on how to improve the curriculum to achieve better outcomes and would look, at among other things, the literacy and numeracy of pupils. These are areas where SA fares poorly in international benchmarking studies, which Gwarube said is deeply concerning.
The 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study revealed that 81% of grade 4 pupils could not read for meaning and the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study showed little improvement in the maths and science performance of SA pupils.
Another problem to be addressed by the forum will be how to reduce the high dropout rate. Despite the country spending more than 6% of GDP on education, only about 60% of children who enrol in grade 1 complete matric. This affects calculations of the matric pass rate, which was just more than 55% after adjusting for those who drop out rather than the 82.9% claimed by the department of basic education.
The consultative forum would look at how to incorporate early childhood development into the education system to provide a solid foundation. Gwarube said this would contribute to better retention of pupils in the system.
It would examine the quality of teaching and how teachers could be upskilled, as well as infrastructure upgrades to ensure that teachers do not have to work in unconducive environments and pupils do not have to learn in broken-down classrooms.
Gwarube noted that former education minister Angie Motshekga had recently signed the norms and standards for infrastructure and said she would be pushing for their implementation to get rid of, among other things, pit toilets.
“It is important that we don’t make the matric results the one and only thing we use as a measure of success of the education system. I would like to introduce a culture where we look at a lot more milestones, milestones around infrastructure upgrades, learner transport, literacy and numeracy rates and others,” Gwarube said.
She was confident she could reach an understanding with the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) if they shared the same commitment to learners. Sadtu expressed disappointment over her appointment on the grounds that the DA blamed the union and teachers for the poor state of education rather than the legacy of apartheid.
“Teachers are our greatest resource and I am going to make sure that their interests are looked after,” Gwarube said.
She also plans to visit the provinces on a national tour to meet education MECs and their teams and to see the education system in action. She wants to learn from those who have worked in the system.
Gwarube said she hoped to meet President Cyril Ramaphosa as soon as possible to discuss the controversial Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill, which awaits his signature. The bill gives the provincial heads of education departments the much-criticised power to approve admission and language policies.
Erosion of powers
She said there were some good elements in the bill, which should be retained. But controversial aspects, such as the erosion of the powers of school governing bodies, should be removed. Gwarube said it was within Ramaphosa’s power to send the bill back to parliament for amendment of those aspects that are causing contention. This would avoid possible litigation.
She said she would also be engaging with finance minister Enoch Godongwana to get resources for early childhood development, which was moved from the social development department to basic education.
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