1. PRESENTATION ON BASIC EDUCATION SECTOR ANALYSIS

2. INTRODUCTION The objective of the presentation is to:
Provide an overview analysis of the Department of Basic Education.
Outline the legacy report and further identifying key issues to be tackled by 6th Parliament.

3. SECTOR ANALYSIS Department of Basic Education

4. Introduction
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is comprised of Early Childhood Development (for children age 0 to 4) and school education (starting from Grade R at age 5 up to Grade 12).
It was established as a distinct Department in 2009 when the former Department of Education was divided into two Departments, i.e. Basic Education and Higher Education.

5. Departmental Programmes
Programme 2: Curriculum Policy, Support and Monitoring
Programme 3:
Teachers, Education Human Resources and
Institutional Development
Programme 4:
Planning, Information and Assessment
Programme 5:
Educational Enrichment Services
Programme 1: Administration

6. Policy Directives Guiding SRSA
Constitutional mandate
The Constitution of South Africa, 1996 (Act 108 of 1996)
The policy requires education to be transformed and democratised in accordance with the values of human dignity, equality, human rights and freedom, non-racism and non-sexism.
It guarantees basic education for all, with the provision that everyone has the right to basic education, including adult basic education.

7. Legislative mandate- NEPA – (National Education Policy Act)
The NEPA inscribes into law the policies, the legislative and monitoring responsibilities of the Minister of Basic Education, as well as the formal relations between national and provincial authorities.
It lays the foundation for the establishment of the Council of Education Ministers (CEM), as well as the Heads of Education Departments Committee (HEDCOM), as inter-governmental forums that would collaborate in the development of a new education system.
The NEPA therefore provides for the formulation of a national policy in both the general and Further Education and Training (FET) bands policies for, inter alia, curriculum, assessment, language, and quality assurance.
The NEPA embodies the principle of cooperative governance, elaborated upon in Schedule 3 of the Constitution.

8. South African Schools Act, (SASA), 1996 (Act 84 of 1996), as amended
To provide for a uniform system for the organisation, governance and funding of schools.
It ensures that all learners have the right of access to quality education without discrimination, and
makes schooling compulsory for children aged 7 to 14 years.

9. Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act 1 of 1999)
To regulate financial management in the national and provincial governments; and
To ensure that government resources are managed efficiently and effectively

10. The Division of Revenue Act, 2013 (Act 2 of 2013)
To provide for equitable division of revenue raised nationally and provincially

11. Employment of Educators Act, 1998 (Act 76 of 1998)
To provide for the employment of educators by the state and for regulation of the conditions of service, discipline, retirement and discharge of educators.
The Employment of Educators Act and the resultant professional council, the South African Council of Educators (SACE), now regulate the historically divided teaching corps.

12. Public Service Act, 1994, as amended Act 103 of 1994)
To provide for the organisation and administration of the public service as well as the regulation of the conditions of employment, terms of office, discipline, retirement and discharge of members of the public service.

13. South African Qualifications Authority Act, 1995 (Act 58 of 1995)
The South African Qualifications Authority Act provides for the establishment of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), which forms the scaffolding for a national learning system that integrates education and training at all levels.
The launch of the Human Resources Development Strategy by the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education on 23 April reinforced the resolve to establish an integrated education, training and development strategy that will harness the potential of adult learners.
The design of the NQF was refined with the publication of Higher Education Qualifications Framework in Government Gazette No. 928, 5 October 2007, to provide ten levels of the NQF.
The school and college level qualifications occupy levels 1 to 4 as in the original formulation, with plans to accommodate some of the college level qualifications at level 5.
Higher education qualifications in the new formulation of the NQF occupy six levels, levels 5 to 10. Levels 5 to 7 are undergraduate and levels 8 to 10 are postgraduate.

14. Policy Mandates Education White Paper 1
The fundamental policy framework of the Ministry of Basic Education is stated in the Ministry’s first white paper, Education and Training in a Democratic South Africa: First Steps to Develop a New System (February 1995).
This document adopted as its point of departure the education policy framework of the ruling party.
After extensive consultation, negotiations and revision, it was approved by Cabinet and has served as a fundamental reference for subsequent policy and legislative development.

15. Education White Paper 5
The Education White Paper on Early Childhood Development (2000) provides for the expansion and full participation of 5-year-olds in pre-school reception grade education by 2010, as well as for an improvement in the quality of programmes, curricula and teacher development for 0- to 4-year-olds and 6- to 9-year-olds.

16. Education White Paper 6
Education White Paper 6 on Inclusive Education (2001) described the intention of the Department of Education to implement inclusive education at all levels of the system by 2020.
Such an inclusive system will facilitate the inclusion of vulnerable learners and reduce barriers to learning through targeted support structures and mechanisms that will improve the retention of learners in the education system, particularly learners who are prone to dropping out.

17. Education White Paper 7
Education White Paper 7 is about e-education and revolves around the use of ICT to accelerate the achievement of national education goals.
It is about connecting learners and teachers to each other and to professional support services, and providing platforms for learning.
It seeks to connect learners and teachers to better information, ideas and one another via effective combinations of pedagogy; and technology in support of educational reform.

18. The National Curriculum Statement Grades R to 12
The National Curriculum Statement Grades R to 12, a policy statement for learning and teaching in schools, replaced the policy document, A Resume of industrial Programmes in Schools, Report 550 (89/03).
It embodies the vision for general education to move away from a racist, apartheid, rote model of learning and teaching, to a liberating, nation-building and learner-centred, outcomes-based initiative.
In line with training strategies, the reformulation is intended to allow greater mobility between different levels and between institutional sites, as well as to promote the integration of knowledge and skills through learning pathways.
Its assessment, qualifications, competency and skills based framework encourages the development of curriculum models that are aligned to the NQF in theory and practice.

19. ENTITIES The South African Council for Educators (SACE) –
It is responsible for the regulation, oversight and promotion of the teaching profession, while;
The General and Further Education and Training Quality Assurance Council (UMALUSI
It is tasked to monitor, report on the adequacy including sustainability of qualifications and standards in general and further education and training, and is further tasked to accredit private providers of education, train and assess, promote quality amongst providers, and ensure that providers adopt quality management systems.
The Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) was at some stage an entity of Basic Education, however, it was delisted in  

20. Collaboration with other Departments
Higher Education, Science & Technology
Social Development
Health
Transport
SAPS
Sports, Arts and Culture
Initial Teacher Training – Funza Lushaka
Early Childhood Development,
Deworming, HIV and AIDS
Scholar Transport MoU
School Sports MoU
School Safety MoU
Effective Working Relationships
Success in the Provision of Quality Basic Education

21. Budget and Expenditure
Year
Voted Allocation (R'million)
% change from previous year (nominal)
* Voted Allocation adjusted for inflation (R'million)
** % change from previous year (adjusted for inflation)
Adjusted Allocation (R'million)
Expenditure (R'million)
Expenditure as a percentage of Adjusted Allocation (%)
2014/15
19 680,1
19 680,10
19 689,9
19 528,9
99,2%
2015/16
21 511,1
9,3%
20 447,81
3,9%
21 286,4
20 796,1
97,7%
2016/17
22 269,6
3,5%
19 914,23
-2,6%
22 413,5
21 476,1
95,8%
2017/18
23 408,6
5,1%
19 954,96
0,2%
22 993,6
22 932,0
99,7%
2018/19
22 722,4
-2,9%
18 360,19
-8,0%
23 699,6
104,3%
2019/20
24 504,5
7,8%
18 821,45
2,5%
* Real change in Rand value
** Real change in percentage terms
The budget of the Department has consistently been just over twenty billion rand, with the exception of the 2014/15 financial year wherein the budget was approximately R19,6 billion.
The Department budget increased in almost all the years except in the 2018/19, where it dropped by R686, 2 Million. The drop in allocation could be attributed to Programme 4 ASIDI;
In 2016/17 and 2018/19, the voted allocations did not keep track with inflation; below inflation increases of -2,6 percent and 0,8 percent respectively.
On budget expenditure, the Department has been doing well, spending in mid to upper 90 percentage, with the exception of 2018/19 where it is likely to overspent by 4,3 percent. This could be attributed to multiyear infrastructure projects.

22. Annual Reports Year Total No. of Indicators No. of targets achieved %
Budget Spent
(in Billion)
Audit opinion
2014/15 26
Annual 22 10
38,5%
19,5
Unqualified with findings
Bi-Annual 1
Quarterly 3
2015/16 30 27
73,3%
20,8
2016/17 44 32
68,2%
21,5 9
2017/18 29
72,7%
22,9
Qualified 4 11
2018/19 48 34

23. Annual Reports
The audit outcome of the Department regressed from unqualified to qualified in 2017/18;
Most of the targets on the Department Indicators are annual targets;
The Department should be advised to reflect milestones on quarterly basis for annual targets; and
The situation was improved in the 2018/19 during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarter reports.

24. LEGACY REPORT 2014-2019 PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON BASIC EDUCATION: 5TH PARLIAMENT

25. Meetings, legislation, International including Oversight Trips and Study Tours Undertaken
Activity
2014/15
2015/16
2016/17
2017/18
2018/19
Total
Meetings held 26 27 34
17 (to date)
130
Legislation processed
None
None0
Oversight trips undertaken 5 8 6 7 32
Study tours undertaken
International agreements processed
Statutory appointments made
N/A
Interventions considered
Petitions considered 2 1 3

26. Overview of Committee Activities - Briefings and/or public hearings
Over the 5-year period under review, the Portfolio Committee, on a weekly basis, received various briefings from the Department of Basic Education (DBE), its entities and other relevant stakeholders on key priorities of the basic education sector.
The Committee resolved to receive regular progress reports on the achievement of critical priorities that posed the most challenge to the sector or had tight targets. These included:
School connectivity and access to ICT resources;
Expansion of quality ECD;
Inclusive Education;
Teacher development,
Supply and utilisation; and
Provision of adequate infrastructure.

27. Overview of Committee Activities - Briefings and/or public hearings: Progress
Teacher Development
Notable progress made includes:
The Department’s targets on the number of Funza Lushaka Bursaries awarded to students enrolled for initial teacher education were exceeded in recent years though their placement remains a challenge particularly in rural areas and poor schools.
The entry of young teachers into the profession is also increasing steadily. However, the Committee’s engagement of the Department on the 25- year review has revealed that although there is improvement in the filling of posts at a sectoral level from 69 percent in 2011 to 78 percent in 2017, this is still below the set target of 95 percent in the MTSF.
The Committee had annual conferral meetings with the PC on Higher Education on the Initial Teacher Education (ITE), which aims to assess progress on the initial teacher training at universities.
These meetings pointed to steady progress being made in improving the quality and focus of ITE.

28. Overview of Committee Activities - Briefings and/or public hearings: Progress
Inclusive education
Recent progress on support to Learners with Special Education Needs (LSEN) include the adaptation of several textbooks into Braille and provision of Braille workbooks and Toolkits in all 11 languages to schools for the visually impaired.
The NSC examination is also now available in sign language. Despite this progress, challenges still exist.
At the Committee’s roundtable meeting with stakeholders on deaf education, DeafSA expressed concern about the lack of focus on Early Childhood Development for deaf children, implementation of sign language as an official academic language without the necessary learner/teacher support material, and the fact that the majority of educators who taught deaf learners did not understand South African Sign Language (SASL).
It was also requested that teaching assistants who understood SASL should be given bursaries to become qualified teachers.
The Committee saw the need for further meetings of this nature to occur in future.

29. Overview of Committee Activities - Briefings and/or public hearings: Progress
Provision of adequate infrastructure
The Committee’s regular engagement on provision of infrastructure pointed to underachievement in respect of ASIDI targets related to inappropriate structures, provision of water and decent sanitation.
The Committee has also noted underachievement with regard to expenditure patterns on the ASIDI programme.
The Sanitation Audit conducted in 2018 showed there was still a challenge with unsafe pit toilets, including the need to build new facilities and to destroy old unsafe facilities.
The Department has set new timeframes to address the sanitation backlogs.
The 6th Parliament should closely monitor the implementation of the Department’s plan to address these backlogs, including effective and efficient use of the budget received from Treasury for this purpose

30. Overview of Committee Activities - Briefings and/or public hearings: Progress
Jobs for cash report briefing
The Committee received a briefing from the Ministerial Task Team (MTT) on the Jobs-for-Cash report and subsequently engaged organised unions, the ELRC and SGB formations on the findings of the report.
The report revealed amongst others that there were many forms of improper and unfair influence affecting the outcomes of the appointment of educators.
Numerous claims of money being paid to influence the outcome were found to be in minority cases.
It was also found that officials of a particular union exerted improper influence.

31. Overview of Committee Activities - Briefings and/or public hearings: Progress
Jobs for cash report briefing
In some cases, there appeared to be collusion between union officials and district/provincial officials leading to a system of patronage.
The report also raised issues within the appointment process in the Educator sector.
Key recommendations made impacting on existing legislation relate to the selection and appointment of educators, including the powers of SGBs to make recommendations for the appointment of certain post level positions.
The Department has been taking steps to address some of the findings and recommendations of the report.
The 6th Parliament should consider following up on the effective implementation of all the recommendations of the report. From a legislative perspective, the recommendations pertaining to the selection and appointment of educators should be considered during the processing of the BELA Bill, once it is referred to Parliament.

32. Overview of Committee Activities - Briefings and/or public hearings: Progress
Alignment of APPs of departments with the MTSF and NDP
The Committee also received briefings from the DBE, AGSA and the nine Provincial Education Departments (PEDs) to enable discussions and to establish progress made in the alignment of APPs of departments with the MTSF.
Follow up engagements on this matter revealed greater alignment on the sector indicators and targets to the MTSF and NDP.
The Sixth Parliament should consider monitoring progress towards the inclusion of key performance indicators in the MTSF and NDP that are not yet covered in the APPs of the sector.
These include the use of competency assessments in the appointment of principals.

33. Challenges emerging
The following challenges emerged during the oversight visit:
 Technical/operational challenges:
Accommodation Challenges –
Accommodation recommended by travel agents is not always up to standard with Members complaining about accommodation arrangements/standards.
Agents book an amount for dinner (with no limitations), but many hotels insist that we utilise the “government Rate/Government package” which only allows for restricted dinner – Members are also then not allowed to have in-room dining.
This “special rate/package is much less than what we have approval for in terms of dinner.
Ground Transport – Should ensure that the drivers have copies of the committee programme/itinerary for the duration of the oversight visit to familiarise themselves with the routings and distances to avoid getting lost or not arriving on time.

34. Obligations conferred on committee by legislation
In terms of Section 5 of the Money Bills Amendment Procedures and Related Matters Act, No. 9 of 2009 the National Assembly, through its Committees, must annually compile Budgetary Review and Recommendation reports (BRRR) that assess service delivery and financial performance of departments and may make recommendations on forward use of resources.
The BRRR is also a source document for the Committees on Appropriations when considering and making recommendations on the Medium Term.
The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, for the last five years, completed its Budgetary Review and Recommendation Reports (BRRRs) as prescribed.
Among other relevant authorities, the Office of the Auditor-General of South Africa was called to brief the Committee on Audit Outcomes of the Department and its Entities.
This was held prior to the Portfolio Committee considering the Annual Reports of the Department and Entities.
This process culminated in the production of the Portfolio Committee Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report (BRRR).

35. Recommendations for the Sixth Parliament PC Committee
The 6th Parliament will need to monitor the implementation of the 2018 BRRR key recommendations to the Department. These are as follows:
Improve the audit outcomes
Address the following recurring challenges:
Irregular expenditure, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure;
The reliability of the reported information in the LURITS database in Programme 4;
Material misstatements in the reported performance information and financial statements;
Non-compliance issues around annual financial statements;
Internal control deficiencies, including leadership oversight; and,
Inadequate consequence management

36. Recommendations for the Sixth Parliament PC Committee
Continue to intensify the implementation of inclusive education to reach all learners with special education needs, including ensuring that all schools for special needs education are well resourced and adequately adapted for learners with special needs and that educators are adequately trained and developed.
Address deficiencies in respect of curriculum coverage and textbook retention and retrieval system, as noted by the Auditor-General.  
Provide the necessary support to the relevant Provincial Education Departments to ensure effective and efficient utilization of conditional grants. The Department should consider developing clear performance evaluation frameworks for the grants under its control, with well- defined performance indicators that can be tracked consistently across project cycle stages for all provinces and performance indicators should be based on quality, cost and time factors. A process should be put in place to hold to account those Provincial Education Departments that do not comply.
Implement the planned headcount reduction strategies to ensure that the Department remain within the compensation of employees ceiling.

37. Recommendations for the Sixth Parliament PC Committee
Strengthen the monitoring of the roll-out of ICT in schools, particularly in rural areas, to ensure that access to ICT resources reaches 100 percent by 2019, as required by the Medium Term Strategic Framework.
Fast track the effective implementation of competency assessments for principals in all the Provincial Education Departments since this indicator is linked to the imperatives of the NDP.
Put more effective/stringent penalties against Implementing Agents who perform poorly in relation to the ASIDI programme.
Take the necessary steps to ensure that the budget follows learners, including those who migrate to other provinces.
Address the deficiencies identified by the Auditor-General regarding Grade R, including infrastructure, teacher learner ratio and qualifications.
Strengthen the monitoring and implementation of curriculum coverage as well as textbook retention and retrieval.

38. Recommendations for the Sixth Parliament PC Committee
Strengthen district monitoring and support to schools. There should be consequence management for district officials who consistently underperform.
Ensure that all training on inclusive education and special education needs is adequate, including for deaf teacher assistants to teach content.
Ensure that the Second Chance Matric Programme is inclusive of learners with special education needs with effect from 2019.
Improve performance in relation to the indicators on teacher participation in self-diagnostic assessments.
Improve performance in respect of the indicators relating to the ASIDI programme, namely, completed schools to replace inappropriate structures, provision of water and decent sanitation.
Together with relevant authorities, fast track the implementation of plans to allocate ring-fenced funds for learner transport.

39. Recommendations for the Sixth Parliament PC Committee
Consideration should be made for additional funding for the ASIDI programme, given that expenditure on ASIDI projects increased at the end of 2017/18 and further that the First Quarter 2018/19 report showed that the programme had 83 schools under construction and another five schools had reached partial completion. Based on the current acceleration on the projects, it would appear that the budget allocation will not be enough to complete projects that are currently running.  
Consideration should be made to increase the budget of Umalusi due to its expanded mandate. 

40. THANK YOU