Equal Education media statement: Equalisers hold swearing-in ceremony for Angie Motshekga outside the Department of Basic Education in Pretoria, to stipulate priorities for her and provincial education MECs
Today high school-going members of Equal Education (Equalisers), from five provinces, are protesting outside the Department of Basic Education (DBE), to stipulate to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga (and the provincial education MECs) what their priorities are for the next five years.
Our protest is in the form of a swearing-in ceremony for Minister Motshekga, where we will hand over a memorandum to the DBE, in the form of a People’s Performance Contract that we have drafted for her.
Minister Motshekga must make the five years of her third term count. #ThirdTermLucky
Among the demands that we articulate in the People’s Performance Contract are that Minister Motshekga must:
- Immediately provide a template to the provincial education MECs to use for the provincial infrastructure implementation plans and progress reports, so that the documents contain information that is accurate and relevant, and so that the documents are easily understood by learners, teachers, parents and the broader SA public;
- Immediately hold accountable the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department for its failure to adopt a final provincial scholar transport policy, and ensure that the department is able to do so within 30 days from today;
- Immediately publish a national plan with details of concrete steps to address the prevalence of violence on the way to school and inside schools, and ensure that provincial education departments make public the details of their expenditure on all school safety related programmes; and
- Roll out interventions that are proven to improve the teaching and learning of reading in the foundation phase, primarily rolling out teacher coaching (as part of the Early Grade Reading Study) to at least 500 schools in each of the nine provinces; and
Motshekga’s reappointment as Basic Education Minister means that she must now demonstrate the “urgency” in meeting her mandate, that President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of when he announced the new members of Cabinet. He specifically said that the new administration that she forms part of, must be “capable” and “efficient”.
We are outside the DBE today, reiterating our call for Minister Motshekga’s performance contract to be made public. This is in line with President Ramaphosa’s pledge that the performance of government Ministers – “individually and collectively” – will be “closely monitored against specific outcomes”.
Minister Angie Motshekga has had 10 years to:
- Eradicate dangerous and undignified school infrastructure;
- Curb violence within schools;
- Provide safe and reliable scholar transport; and
- Measurably improve the quality of primary school education, and the early grade literacy rate.
Minister Motshekga is a public servant, and the public must be able to measure her performance – and that of other Ministers – against the outcomes stipulated in the performance contract that she has signed with President Ramaphosa.
For further comment:
Noncedo Madubedube (Equal Education General Secretary) noncedo@equaleducation.org.za 079 170 4656
Tracey Malawana (Equal Education Deputy General Secretary) tracey@equaleducation.org.za 072 714 0659
Leanne Jansen-Thomas (Equal Education Head of Communications) 079 4949 411
