by Nangamso Magadla

In his 2008 Budget Speech and Policy Statement, Eastern Cape MEC Billy Nel pointed out that “the current educational system faces the problem of service provision”.

“There is also enormous deficit in affordable access. Poor people have less access, lower attainment, and lower quality than those better off. Effective solutions to the education problems require more resources to be directed to the sector. And to learn effectively, children need affordable access to classrooms and laboratories, learner and teacher support materials and quality instruction.”

His statement appeared to underscore what is already known by most South Africans, especially those in the Eastern Cape – that our education sector is experiencing many challenges which impact on the lives of the children, more so those in the rural areas.

The Eastern Cape still has schools whose structures are quite hazardous and compromise pupils’ learning experience. Unfortunately for many children the so-called mud schools are the only learning environments and structures available. Delivering her State of the Province Address in Bhisho, Premier Nosimo Balindlela said 189 746 pupils were still studying in these “mud schools”.

“We are fast-tracking the rebuilding of the 140 worst mud structures in the province, but we acknowledge that much more needs to be done to address the need,” she said. [Dispatch now 24/7. www.blogs.dispatch.co.za]

The current state of poverty facing most residents in rural villages makes it impossible for the parents and guardians of rural children to take them to better schools. However, despite atrocious school conditions, the children continue in their determination to attain a better education to improve their lives.

At the start of each year the Education Department experiences problems with delivering educational material to the schools – a situation which results in the learners being the ones to suffer.

This has been the case for a number of years, and is yet to be managed. The department seems to be aware that there is a lack of capacity in terms of implementing actions to deal with the challenges. Presenting the provincial budget, Nel remarked that “... the need to build capacity in administration and also creatively utilise the existing capacity to step up spending cannot therefore be over-emphasised”.

Each year the department sets goals in an effort to deal with the challenges it faces. In the 2006 Provincial Service Delivery Charter, the Department of Education committed itself to the following:

• Deliver all approved and recommended learning and teaching support material (LTSM) to public schools before the commencement of each school year;
• Provide all vulnerable learners in Grades R-7 and in quintiles 1 and 2, in identified public schools, with one nutritious, balanced meal per school day by 10h00;
• Eliminate mud structures by 2010 at the rate of 20% per annum;
• 30% of school governing bodies (SGBs) and school management teams (SMTs) are annually exposed to empowerment programmes to strengthen leadership and governance and promote effective schools over the next three years.

The goals set above have seen a progressive increase in the budget allocation for the Eastern Cape Department of Education.  For instance, a total of R14.7 billion was availed for use by the Department of Education in the 2007/2008 financial year. This represented an increase of 12.2% over the revised estimates for the 2006/2007 financial year. This was revealed by the Madam Speaker in the 2007/2008 Budget Speech and Policy Statement in March 2007.

The increase in budget was allocated so that the Department of Education could meet its challenges. However, despite the increase in budget, not all the funds were used for the planned interventions.

The Daily Dispatch reported that the various Eastern Cape departments relinquished an amount of R1.4 billion to national Treasury. Out of this amount, the Department of Education rolled back R228.4m. This was despite the serious backlogs mentioned above. In fact, during the same period the school feeding scheme collapsed. With its collapse thousands of learners were robbed of probably the only nutritious meal they were getting. And while the powers that be keep trying to figure out what went wrong, the very people the programme was implemented for are going without the service.

During a telephonic interview with Mr Fodo, principal of Zintonga Junior Secondary School in Port St Johns, it was revealed that even schools fortunate enough not to be affected by the collapsed nutrition programme were faced with some trials. The food is not always available and more often than not, children eat outdoors in poor weather conditions.

Fodo argued that the Department of Education should look at extending the feeding scheme service to pupils in higher grades as well. This statement was further supported by Mr Mbindela, the principal of Bojane Junior Secondary School in Ngcobo.

There have been numerous reports to the effect that thousands of Eastern Cape children are going hungry after the province’s new school feeding system collapsed before it got off the ground. The pupils were supposed to have been getting three cooked meals a week and soup and bread on the other two days.

Problems allegedly arose after the previous suppliers for the feeding scheme, including two major bakery groups, were dumped, making way for smaller community-based suppliers and co-operatives that were unable to deliver.

Termination of a 10-year-long relationship with Mr Bread and Star Bakery also meant that hundreds of sub-contractors, who had delivered bread in the school districts, were left without a means of earning an income.

The Eastern Cape Primary School Nutrition Programme collapsed at the start of last year over allegations of maladministration involving the misappropriation of R100 million (Independent Online, 10 October 2007).

Another goal that was not fulfilled was the replacement of mud structures in schools. Four years ago, in his State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki said: “By the end of this financial year we shall ensure that there is no learner or student learning under a tree, in a mud school or any dangerous conditions that expose learners and teachers to the elements.”

There are still mud schools out there, and almost 200 000 pupils in the Eastern Cape attend these schools.

In the 2007/2008 Service Delivery Report, the Office of the Premier reports that:

• The Department of Education is undertaking a rapid Delivery Project geared at total eradication of mud structures and unsafe schools that continue to blight most rural areas of the Transkei.
• 189 746 learners are attending school in 832 mud-structure schools.
• Currently only 147 of these schools have been attended to in terms of intervention programmes while no intervention has taken place in 685 of these schools.
• To fast-track these matters the premier also managed to secure funding from Petro SA so that the worst mud-structure schools could receive a cash reserve of R100 000 to ensure relief and a faster turnaround strategy and rebuilding of these schools.
• Of the 51 mud-structure schools on the list, 24 were completed during the third quarter of the 2007/2008 financial year. However, due to an acute shortage of inspectors in both Public Works and the Department of Education, they could not yet be handed over.

The budget for the Department of Education has been increased by R3.3 billion (22.8%) in the 2008/2009 financial year, bringing the total allocation to the department in the 2008/2009 financial year to R17.8 billion (Province of the Eastern Cape 2008 Budget Speech and Policy Statement).

Of the R3.3 billion additional allocation to the department in the next financial year, R1.2 billion will be used to fund certain policy priorities, among which are:

Provision of text books for Grades 10-12    R22 million
Infrastructure (school building programme)   R100 million
Additional funding for maintenance of school infrastructure  R100 million
Scale up scholar transport     R70 million

The above extracts from the 2007/2008 Service Delivery Report and the Province of the Eastern Cape 2008 Budget Speech and Policy Statement indicate that the province is looking at addressing problems and challenges facing the Department of Education. Clearly, it is not a lack of resources that is ailing the department.

In any case, as noted above, the department rolled back R228.4m to the national Treasury. This raises the question of whether the department should have been allocated an increase of 22.8% in the 2008/2009 financial year and whether it will be able to use these funds within the assigned period.

As mentioned above, there are many disturbing issues around the operations within the Department of Education. The department has serious difficulties implementing and managing the requisite educational programmes.

It is crucial therefore that it looks into ways of improving the capacity of its personnel, and that it ask for help if need be in order to ensure that service delivery does indeed benefit the rural communities of the Eastern Cape, and that children’s rights to education are not infringed upon.

Sources:
Nel, WH Province of the Eastern Cape, 2008 Budget Speech and Policy Statement
Daily Dispatch
Province of the Eastern Cape Treasury, Budget Speech 2007/2008
Province of the Eastern cape Office of the Premier, Service Delivery Report 2007/2008
“Thousands still in mud schools” Dispatch Now 24/7. www.blogs.dispatch.co.za (accessed 11/03/2008)
www.iol.co.za (accessed 11/03/2008)
www.mailandguardina.co.za (accessed 11/03/2008)
www.eprop.co.za/news/article (accessed 11/03/2008)
www.news24.com/City_Press/News (accessed 11/03/2008)
www.ecprov.gov.za (accessed 10-12/03/2008)

Local Government Transformer Apr/May 2008