Department of Basic Education Deputy Minister, Dr Makgabo Reginah Mhaule, says that the department has met its constitutional mandate to make education accessible for all children.
Mhaule was speaking during a panel discussion at a conference held in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni earlier this week, on how the right to education has been used to uplift the economic and social wellbeing of South African children.
During the three-day National Conference on Human Rights that was hosted by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, various discussions were held to look at the progress that the country has made since the formation of the South African Constitution in 1996.
The Deputy Minister highlighted the Freedom Charter of 1955 which stated that “The doors of learning and culture shall be opened. This was at the foundation of the department’s goals to make the right to basic education a reality.
“The constitution makes it an obligation that every child must be at school at least up to Grade 9, so in order to access education, we came up with appropriate policies,” says Mhaule.
Some of these policies include using a “pro-poor” approach through the introduction of quintile categories where schools that from quintile one to three, are no-fee schools that are found mostly in the rural communities and townships. At these schools, learners receive free stationery and are also provided with breakfast and lunch through the school nutrition programme.
While not all schools that fall within the three quintiles have not been able to fully benefit from the department’s programmes, Mhaule says that progress is being made slowly to ensure that all South African schools benefit from these policies.
“We are responding to the National Development Plan (NDP) by 2030 and we must increase the number of learners that are doing mathematics. The department is also working with the Department of Higher Education by introducing a three-stream model where learners can choose an academic route of their choice,” she added.
“We have done this by having schools of specialisation like the school of agriculture, aviation, marine, tourism and all these kinds of schools in all nine provinces,” she says.
Another priority that the Deputy Minister says is high on the agenda, is the eradication of pit latrines at all schools.
Despite this, the Professor of Practice in the School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy at the University of Johannesburg, Mary Metcalfe, says that while progress has been made, the department has not met all of the standards it is expected to meet because of the limited state capacity and resources.
Metcalfe further highlights the role played by the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) when it comes to protecting the right to basic education by holding the government accountable for not addressing the norms and standards for school infrastructure, the provision of teaching and learning material, furniture, transport, the eradication of corporal punishment and ensuring that undocumented children access their right to basic education.
“You cannot sacrifice the rights of children in the basic education phase because you are putting resources in further education. It is a primary right that all of our children from Grade R to Grade 9, get everything that they need that is defined in the right to education,” she emphasises.
Building the state’s capacity is what is needed to address the challenges faced by the department and this will require a vigilant civil society to ensure that every child, despite their socio-economic circumstances, gets to realise the right to basic education, Metcalfe adds.