Committee Report on Basic Education Budget

Meeting report

The Chairperson asked Members to observe a moment of silence in memory of the seven Wits university students who were killed in a car crash on Monday, 2 May 2016 in Limpopo, and said Members were with the grieving families as the students were expected to grow up to contribute to improving the state of the country.

The Chairperson led Members through the report page by page.
On page 37, second bullet from the top on the report there appeared to be a grammatical error where the Chairperson asked the Committee members if the sentence was grammatically correct or should be amended, the Committee members said the sentence does not need to be amended.

Ms D Van Der Walt (DA) noted that on page 38 of the report the last two points were a repetition of the same thing and suggested that the error should be corrected.

The Chairperson invited Committee Members to amend what they thought should be amended on the content of the report and if there were no amendments to the content she will assume that all members believe that the report is well presented.

The report was adopted.

The Chairperson reminded Committee members of the upcoming budget vote which on 10 May 2016 at 2pm and urged Members to prepare for it.

Adoption of minutes
The Committee considered and adopted minutes of Committee meetings dated 15 March, 5 April, 7 April and 19 April 2016

The Chairperson reminded Members of the 3-Stream model issue and that a number of requests were received from organisations and entities to attend the meeting, which they were interested in learning more about it.

The Chairperson mentioned that she is pleased with the work of the Committee secretary as there were very few grammatical errors and Members had no difficulties going through the minutes. 

The Chairperson welcomed Prof T Msimang (IFP) who came in 5 minutes before the end of meeting and he apologised for being late.

The Chairperson said it was a pity that Members did not have enough time to discuss other important issues such as the licensing of teachers as members are aware of debates taking place in public and in worker’s unions. She called on Members to be patient and understanding when it came to such issues, as it was their duty to discuss and deal with them

The Chairperson thanked the Committee members.

The meeting was adjourned.