Basic Education Minister, Mrs Angie Motshekga, presented the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE’s) Budget Vote 16, for the 2023/24 Financial Year to the National Chamber of Provinces (NCOP) in Parliament, Cape Town, on 7 June 2023.
The Minister said that COVID-19 severely impacted on learning outcomes, exasperating teaching and learning losses and setting students back by one year of learning. She referred to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS 2021) report that was recently shared with South Africans saying that, the state of global learning poverty was found to be as high as 86% for Sub-Saharan Africa. “Through PIRLS, the Department heeds the National Development Plan (NDP) call for South Africa to participate in international benchmarking against the best systems in the world to improve education outcomes, and not to compete, as reading comprehension and performance is interlinked.”
During the 2018 State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Ramaphosa decreed that learners must be able to read for meaning by the age of 10 years. The DBE and the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) responded with the National Reading Strategy (NRS) in 2019 with its 10 pillars. The NRS will be adjusted to an Integrated National Reading Literacy Strategy with four key interdependent strands.
“Since the Early Childhood Development (ECD) function shift from the Department of Social Development to the DBE, we have been crafting and implementing innovative strategies to strengthen the foundations of learning, looking at the continuum from birth to early Grades in the Foundation and Intermediate Phases. A new holistic and inclusive publicly planned, publicly co-ordinated and publicly funded mixed provisioning model is underway to enable the expansion of access to early learning opportunities.”
In respect of skills and competencies for a changing world, the Three-Stream Curriculum Model is a responsive curriculum to meet the demands of the 21st Century with the introduction of the vocational and the occupational streams as additional learning pathways towards the attainment of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) in the schooling system. “The General Education Certificate (GEC) was piloted for assessment in 277 schools in 2022. This year, we have decided to step-up the pilot in 1,000 schools, including 126 Schools of Skill. The GEC will provide opportunities for those who wish to exit Grade 9 to be trained at TVET colleges.”
Infrastructure, overcrowding and access to sanitation facilities, water and electricity supply to schools remain a major challenge. The Department has crafted an Infrastructure Ten-Point Strategy to accelerate the roll-out of school infrastructure, adopted by the Council for Education Ministers (CEM).
The 2023/24 MTEF budget allocation for all nine provinces stands at R304 billion, an increase of R2.3 billion, divided as follows:
- The Eastern Cape Province budget allocation is at R41.4 billion, an increase of R3.3 billion;
- The Free State Province budget allocation is at R7.6 billion, a decline of 0.6%;
- The Gauteng Province budget allocation is at R60.4 billion, an increase of 5.7%;
- The KwaZulu-Natal Province budget allocation is at R60.6 billion, an increase of 0.3%;
- The Limpopo Province budget allocation is at R38.2 billion, an increase of 1.5%;
- The Mpumalanga Province budget allocation is at R24.9 billion, an increase of 0.2%;
- The Northern Cape Province budget allocation is at R8.1 billion, an increase of 1.7%;
- The North-West Province budget allocation is at R200.6 billion, a decline of -1%; and
- The Western Cape Province budget allocation is at R29.5 billion; an increase of 4.9%.
In conclusion, the Minister said that the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) challenges faced by in the KwaZulu-Natal Province during April have been addressed and nutrition was restored across schools. “As we continue to confront our ongoing challenges in the sector: learner performance; schools and district offices; infrastructure; resource constraints; school safety; learners and teachers’ well-being; and parental involvement, we will remain resilient to ensure the visible upward trajectory of the education system”. Minister Motshekga presented the national budget allocation in the National Assembly on 18 May 2023, with a total allocation of R31.8 billion, an increase of 7.0% from last year’s overall allocation, for the 2023/24 MTEF.