SADTU Submission to the Public Hearings
of the Education Portfolio Committee
on Education Budget Vote 15
Parliament, Cape Town
1-2 June 2004
Introduction
As SADTU we welcome this opportunity to share ideas and concerns with the Education Portfolio Committee on the vital issue of budgeting for the education sector. SADTU has a very special interest in this matter. With 220,000 members we are the majority union in the sector, representing almost two-thirds of educators – mostly employed in the disadvantaged working class and poor communities. Our submission is therefore driven by two underlying concerns:
To improve the conditions in which our members work so that they can perform their educational tasks to the best of their abilities and without hindrance; and
To accelerate the transformation of the education system so that all learners have access to quality public education
With this in mind we have sought to analyse Budget Vote 15 in relation to the objectives set in the policy documents of the ANC. In this regard we should probably start by quoting the ANC’s election manifesto commitment on educational delivery: "Ensure that all children have decent classrooms, further reduce the teacher/pupil ratio, improve spending in favour of children and student from poor households, and expand the school nutrition programme." (p25)
In analyzing the quantitative aspects of the budget we have also drawn on the work of IDASA [in particular: IDASA Budget Brief 140 "The National Education Budget 2004", R A Wildeman]
Education Budget Vote 15
In this section we comment on the document: "Eduation Budget Vote 15". A general concern we have in the reporting is the lack of specific figures and targets under some of the programmes. There are too many vague aspirations, and not enough firm commitments on measurable implementation targets. We will draw attention to some specific examples below.
Programme purpose and measurable objectives (pp353-4)
We have one query on this section of the document: all programmes except programme 1 (Administration), include measurable objectives. Programme 1 refers to top management. We would have expected to see measurable objectives also for this programme to ensure accountability and delivery from our top managers.
Strategic overview and key policy developments: 2000/01 – 2006/07 (pp354-7)
FET and NCS - The sections on the revised National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and Further Education and Training (FET) give the impression that curriculum change is proceeding apace in an orderly fashion. In fact there have been major delays, particularly in relation to implementation of the new FET curriculum. The latest dates for the implementation of the revised NCS and the new FET are 2006, whilst provisional dates for the new GET Certificate and FET Certificate are 2005 and 2008 respectively.
The immediate results of these delays are well known: learners entering grade 10 two years ago, having been reared on outcomes based education, found themselves thrust back into the traditional curriculum for which they had not been prepared. Learners and educators alike were thrown into some confusion due to a lack of planning and coordination from the national department.
The confusion continues. We are not aware of a detailed implementation plan to meet the revised 2006 deadline for the new FET curriculum to include: general logistics, advocacy, new learning support materials (LSM) for current learning areas, new LSM and teachers for the wholly new learning areas to be introduced, retraining of teachers for new learning areas, training manuals, general training for educators on the new curriculum and assessment instruments etc.
Expenditure trends (p358)
Whilst we welcome the additional provision for implementation of the new FET curriculum – R70 million in 2004/5 and R40 million in 2005/6 – we are bound to ask if this sum will cover the costs of new LSM, training and support for such a massive undertaking. The introduction of Curriculum 2005 was severely compromised by the lack of adequate materials, training and support. It would be a tragedy if we were to repeat the mistake with FET.
Programme 2: Systems planning (p363)
We are pleased that this programme is concerned with establishing national norms for the provision of support staff to schools: administrative, cleaning, security and ground staff. Currently these resources are concentrated in former model C schools. Most former ‘Bantu education’ schools simply do not have this kind of support. As a result school managers and educators perform administrative duties, whilst learners have to perform cleaning duties. Security is non-existent. The time available for learning and teaching is consequently reduced. This is discriminatory against learners in poor (black) communities and highly inefficient in terms of use of educators’ available time.
Our concern is that this issue has been on the table since at least the Public Service Jobs Summit over three years ago, and still we have not established norms – let alone started to discuss budgets. This is an area which requires fast tracking, and less wishful thinking.
Programme 3: General education
ECD/Grade R (p366)
For SADTU the target of opening access for every South African child to quality ECD and Grade R is one of the most important objectives of the transformation agenda. International research indicates that access to ECD greatly assists subsequent progress through the schooling system. Indeed the department’s research comes to the same conclusion (Vote 15, p371). In South Africa only a small minority of learners have had access to ECD/Grade R – although accurate figures do not seem to be available (certainly no figures were available to the last meeting of the Hedcom Finance Sub-committee). Our concerns are the following:
The lack of accurate figures on the progress of the roll out of Grade R
The target set in the Vote 15 document is for 300,000 Grade R learners in 2004/05. How close are we to that target? How does that measure against the target of 100% coverage by 2010. Are we on track?
This is obviously a matter of resources. We need to know that with the termination of conditional grants for ECD, new monies have been availed to provincial budgets to cover the shortfall. Indications from the most recent Hedcom Finance Sub-committee meeting are that this did take place: the conditional grants have been incorporated into provincial budgets but no new monies have been availed. In the context of an expanding programme this seems to be an oversight and would clearly limit the ability of provinces to further roll out Grade R.
The implementation and funding of Grade R educators seems to vary from province to province: some providing a small subsidy to schools to employ ECD practitioners (child minders?), others employing qualified teachers as part of the staff establishment. Given the low levels of funding, this has implications for the scale of roll out possible, but it also has implications for the quality of provision.
Against all international experience and practice, the department of education has adopted the following stance towards ECD:
much larger class sizes than for senior learners
lower funding levels for Grade R than higher grades
lower qualification levels for Grade R educators. There appears to be no understanding that this is actually a specialized field – if anything – requiring additional training.
We need to review progress with the roll out of quality ECD/Grade R to all learners. This is key to democratizing our education system and improving quality. Currently, when the majority of our children arrive at school on the first day for Grade 1, they are already at a serious disadvantage.
Programme 4: FET
Matriculation pass rates (p369)
To quote from the document, Vote 15: "Of some concern is the continuing decline in the number of candidates writing the Senior Certificate examination." This is in fact a serious matter of concern. SADTU first called for an investigation into this phenomenon after the 1999 results. We have also made the point that our current matric system excludes the majority of learners: most drop out before reaching matric; a quarter fail and receive no certificate despite having stayed the course for so long, with very little provision for re-writing the exam. The new FET curriculum has to address this massive deficit which consigns the majority of our learners to failure.
Programme 5: Quality promotion and development
This programme amongst others addresses school sports. We see very little evidence of any plan to address this area. See below.
School nutrition programme
Given the changes in the administration of this programme, and past problems experienced, it is essential that close monitoring and evaluation takes place to ensure that poor children in particular receive the full benefit of this programme.
Evaluating progress towards access, equity and quality (p371)
The findings of the first survey and report of educational achievement by Grade 3 (released June 2003) needs to be highlighted. Although the results are disappointing – 54% literacy level and 30% numeracy level – the report identifies factors that influence learner performance:
language policy and use of learners’ mother tongue
exposure to ECD
presence of teaching and learning materials
These are crucial findings, and all of them can be and need to be urgently addressed. In particular, language policy needs to be clarified to all stakeholders – learners, parents, SGBs, educators and school managers – and educators need to be trained and equipped to implement it.
Programme 6: Higher education
National Student Financial Aid Scheme (p374)
We trust – in the light of recent problems at Wits and North-West universities – that the review of the NSFAS will receive urgent attention. Access to higher education – in a post-apartheid dispensation – should not depend on financial standing which often reflects inherited racial privilege. In addition, there are new problems arising out of the merger process, as pressure is brought to bear to raise the fees of the historically disadvantaged institutions in line with their new partners.
These problems have major implications for access and equity to higher education, as well as for South Africa’s human resources development programme.
Additional areas of concern in Education Budget 2004
This section draws on the analysis provided by IDASA.
Norms
The 2004 education budget renews commitments to develop funding norms in a number of sub-sectors. We have some concerns, based on information garnered from the work of the Hedcom Finance Sum-committee:
Work has been proceeding for far too long on these norms
The issue of user fees keeps cropping up – for ABET and for FET – just as the department has accepted the need to start dismantling fees for GET – at least for the poorest quintiles. Fees – it has been shown – are barriers to learning for the poor. We would not like to see these constraints introduced for FET and ABET – where the majority of potential clients are likely to be unemployed or from poor communities.
The norms for funding Grade R seem to be based on the notion that less qualified and cheap labour is suitable for educating young children. This is a serious mistake.
Specific candidates for increased funding
In its analysis of the 2004 Education budget, IDASA highlights two areas which it believes have been disadvantaged in the current budget, and for which additional funding should have been budgeted perhaps in the form of conditional grants:
The special needs/inclusive education sector. Given the vulnerability of learners in this sector, and the fact that a number of conditional grants had just come to completion, IDASA felt that this would have been a suitable candidate for funding in line with the government’s pro-poor philosophy; and
Public FET colleges. Additional funding is necessary to support the consolidation of these colleges following the restructuring and merger process which has taken place in the sector. Fast tracking the development of this sub-sector is also crucial to the government’s skills strategy.
Is education spending being squeezed?
The IDASA analysis suggests that funding to education is being squeezed in the following ways:
Transfer payments to provinces for education fall in real terms by 1.3% per annum from 2003/04 to 2006/07 (IDASA Budget Brief No 140, p7 Table 4) largely as a result of the phasing out of key conditional grants at the end of 2004/04. The bulk of new spending for 2004 appears to go to Higher Education.
Whilst overall annual spending on education rises in real terms by 1.9% from 2003/04 to 2006/07, the increase is well below the average annual increase of 4.1% for social expenditure as a whole. Welfare spending meanwhile increases at an annual rate of 7.9% (IDASA Budget Brief No 140, p2 Table 1). These are national figures. The fear is that the squeeze on education spending could be even greater at provincial level, especially in the poorer provinces. When budget adjustments were made at the end of 2003, it appears – from preliminary reports available to the Hedcom Finance Sub-committee – that very little of the additional funding went to education.
As SADTU we appreciate the need to greatly expand social spending in the face of apartheid backlogs, poverty, unemployment and the Aids crisis. However, we feel that a stronger case needs to be put for education by the education department and the education community. Education is not a matter of simple consumption spending, but represents an important investment in the future of the country – addressing the skills shortage, in turn contributing to expanding the economy and employment. International research also indicates that education is a powerful tool in the struggle against HIV/Aids.
Conditional grants and provincial capacity
In the last few years the national department has made available a number of conditional grants to provinces covering ECD, HIV/Aids and financial management. Although, there was improvement in 2003, there has been massive under-spending by provinces in relation to these grants (IDASA Budget Brief No 140, p9 Table 6 and Figure 3; p14 Appendix). This state of affairs is still cause for concern.
Apartheid backlogs and capital investment plans
The last School Register of Needs in 2001 indicated the degree of inequality and backlogs in the public schooling system. We have to get to grips with this problem. The department’s approach to target capital spending towards the poorest provinces with the greatest capital infrastructure needs makes short term sense, as long as the needs of poor learners in less poor provinces are also taken into account. More generally, after ten years of democracy we would like to see an end in sight for this problem with clear targets and deadlines for addressing the major backlogs.
Further research required
Whilst Vote 15 deals with the national education budget, we are all aware that the vast majority of these funds are utilised at provincial level where national priorities can be modified or changed as a result of provincial budget decisions. This committee – which has national oversight of the education budget – needs to be informed on the provincial implementation of budget decisions. IDASA had hoped to run this kind of provincial analysis, but up to now has been frustrated by lack of data from one province in particular – Gauteng. IDASA has also said that it needs this provincial data to analyse exactly what provision is being made for the further roll out of ECD and Grade R, and to see what is happening with ABET funding.
Education priorities: Areas to be fast-tracked
Following the recent elections, with a new government and a new Minister of Education, SADTU took the opportunity to review progress made towards our broad education transformation goals. This was captured in a memo to the new Minister, the honorable Naledi Pandor. Many of these issues have been touched on in our response to the Education Budget Vote 15. We would like to take this opportunity to highlight some additional issues, which also raise questions around funding and the budget.
User Fees
Arising out of the ministerial review of funding which took place last year – a process which had been called for by the ANC National Conference in December 2002 – the then Minister announced a plan of action, which amongst others proposed:
Exemption from fee paying for all learners in schools in the bottom two quintiles (ie for 40% of the poorest schools); and
Clarity and advocacy around individual fee exemptions for reasons of poverty. This included automatic exemption for orphans and learners from families in receipt of social grants.
As SADTU we are concerned that there will be further delays in implementing the blanket exemptions for poor schools because provinces have not completed the poverty rankings required to establish national quintiles. As regards individual exemptions, we need to implement these policies vigorously now. There are still far too many stories in the media of poor families struggling to pay fees where they have a right to exemption.
More generally, SADTU has argued that the setting and collection of fees has bedeviled the development of SGBs which are turned into debt collecting agencies rather than concentrating on the core business of education management and transformation. In the light of this SADTU has called for a review of the South African Schools Act and in particular of the powers of SGBs.
The post provisioning model (PPM)
We need to again flag the socially regressive nature of the education department’s mechanism for post provisioning. The PPM – which distributes teaching posts to schools – accounts for approximately 85% of provincial education budgets. Yet apart from a small top-slicing of 1-2% in favour of poorer schools, the mechanism provides no further means of redistributing resources equitably. If anything the PPM works in favour of well resourced high schools which offer a wide curriculum, and which already raise additional funding in the form of high user fees. The ELRC will be researching alternative models this year, and we eagerly await the outcome of this process.
Teacher development
The quality of educational provision is also crucially affected by the quality and provision of teacher training and development. And yet we still lack a national plan for teacher development. Teachers need to be trained – and provided with on-going support - to deal with the new curricula and a range of other challenges: principally, they are on the frontline of dealing with the trauma of AIDS orphans and combating the pandemic amongst the youth.
The Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS) was introduced this year. We see this as crucial to the process of teacher development. Annually all teachers will be assessed in a transparent and supportive fashion and weaknesses identified for training or mentorship (as well as to determine pay progression). We need to ensure that adequate resources are availed for advocacy, training and development to take place to make this initiative a success. Presently the roll out is very uneven between provinces.
We believe that the SETAs have a large potential role to play here in rolling out skills training for educators, but again delivery has been slow, to say the least. We believe that well-trained and motivated educators are key to delivering quality education in the classroom.
Higher Education - HIV/Aids – teacher training
We await the results of the major ELRC-HSRC research project into the supply and demand factors for teachers which is currently underway, but already there is clear evidence of a looming teacher shortage in teachers. Recent work by Luis Crouch and Helen Perry (Chapter 21 in HSRC: " Human Resources Development Review 2003: Education, Employment and Skills in South Africa", Cape Town, 2003, p494) estimates the following possible scenarios for the total of new educators required by 2006:
11,000 all else being equal
19,000 factoring in the likely impact of HIV/Aids
25,000 if inclusive education is introduced.
We have another problem. Given the nature of the HIV/Aids illness, the likely scenario is that of ill educators needing increased sick leave but able to make a contribution to education on an intermittent basis. This suggests the need for a more sophisticated and responsive system of substitute teachers. This requires resources and management capacity.
We are concerned that the department has been slow to tackle these issues, and that this is reflected in the absence of specific budget allocation for training of new teachers and provision of substitute teachers.
School sports and physical education
Let us complete this submission on a high note. South Africa is still basking in the triumph of the 2010 bid. As SADTU we believe this is an appropriate time to reopen the issue of access to school sports and physical education. It is inconceivable that we could arrive at 2010, with the majority of our schools still lacking basic sports programmes. This is an area in which it is a misnomer to speak about the leveling of the playing fields. Quite simply the majority of our schools do not have playing fields, let alone other sports equipment and facilities.
In 2001 we made a comprehensive joint submission with the United School Sports Association of South Africa (USSASA) and Wits Department of Physical Education to the parliamentary hearing on the draft revised national curriculum statement. Let me remind the committee of some of the points made.
In relation to physical education and sport, the RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) had this to say in 1994, "One of the cruelest legacies of apartheid is its distortion of sport and recreation in our society, the enforced segregation of these activities and the gross neglect in providing facilities for the majority of South Africa’s people. This has denied millions of our people and particularly our youth the right to a normal and healthy life."
We estimated – in our submission in 2001 - that in the post-apartheid era, since 1994, "we have allowed about 12.5 million learners to continue to stream through ‘formal’ education systems without exposure to and participation in physical education and sport. We estimate that outside of private and ex-model C schools, physical education is all but non-existent for 80% of our children."
The euphoria around 2010 should not blind us to the dire situation facing school sports. Rather it should inspire and provide leverage for addressing these backlogs.
Concluding remarks
Ten years ago South Africa embarked on a mighty project to transform apartheid education and to provide access for all to quality public education within a unitary and non-racial national system. This required major changes to the curriculum and a redistribution of resources on a more equitable basis. The ANC – with input from Alliance partners and other stakeholders - has developed a clear vision for education. Legislation and policy is in place. Ministers Bhengu and Asmal have provided inspired political leadership – doubtless Minister Pandor will do the same, and yet, progress in implementing transformation goals has been slow.
In preparing this submission, SADTU has the following objectives – to highlight the present log-jam in delivery and to spell out again the main areas which require implementation to take forward our struggle for quality public education for all.