WCED on STEAMAC subjects offered in schools

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed Members and invited the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) delegation to make a presentation.

Mr Haroon Mahomed, Deputy Director-General: Curriculum Management and Assessment Management, WCED, briefed the Committee on the three streams education model. He referred to the STEAMAC subjects -  science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, agriculture and coding - and described the Department’s focus schools plan. The presentation also detailed the current collaborations between schools, insights on blended learning and the coding and robotics landscape in the WCED.

The three streams model and focus schools plan was informed by youth unemployment in the Western Cape province as most government plans overlooked provincial and local mandates and focused on national mandates. The Western Cape Government had identified five economic sectors that had great potential to accelerate growth and job creation in the province. These included tourism, oil and gas, agri-processing, energy and security, and information and communication technology (ICT).

The WCED approach was based on the three streams model, STEAMAC, focus schools, and the Entrepreneurship and Employability Education (E3) pilot programme. The long-term priority was to increase access, learner enrolment and performance in technical, agricultural and vocational education and to double the number of learners enrolled in the technical and agricultural stream between 2020 and 2024.

On implementing the three streams, he said the academic stream prepared learners for general, formative, well-rounded post-school education and training (PSET). The vocational stream prepared learners for professional learning and work in PSET. The occupational stream prepared learners for trade and artisanal workplaces.

Focus schools would serve as lead institutions in their fields, offering quality education to ensure excellence in teaching and training learners with exceptional talent, interest or aptitude. The organising fields for the focus schools would include agriculture, supply chain management (SCM), maritime and marine fields, IT and computer science, services, arts and culture, as well as maths, science, engineering and technology.

Discussion

Mr K Sayed (ANC) asked for a breakdown of the technical focus schools per district and the number of those focused on the farming sector and within farming communities. He also wanted to know whether opening technical schools would lead to the closure of non-technical schools in the province. He asked for clarity on what was meant by references to spatial planning and a curriculum  alignment plan.

He said the Standing Committee had recently visited Brazil and seen how vocational and technical education formed a major part of the curriculum. He asked about the plans of the WCED to make vocational and technical education the central part of the education system of the province. He wanted to know how and when the province would improve on the 1.7 percent vocational education proportion and when the goal of 40 percent academic and 60 percent vocational would be reached.

Mr M Kama (ANC) wanted to know the WCED’s plans to assist other schools in meeting the requirements for STEAMAC and whether the same criteria for STEAMAC would apply in choosing schools that would participate in coding and robotics. He also wanted to know how the WCED was funding the pilot project for coding and robotics since the curriculum was not gazetted.

Mr F Christians (ACDP) said there was not enough room for pupils to get into technical schools and wanted to know how that was managed. Some of the challenges in communities included learners' inability to access certain subjects because they were not offered in their schools and learners’ uncertainty about their future and going to school purposelessly.

Responses

Mr Mahomed said the issue of the opening of technical schools leading to the closure of existing academic schools had not featured in the discussions. However, the WCED supported refurbishment of schools that had the potential to offer technical subjects and the provision of the necessary human resources.

In the Western Cape, 96.6 percent of learners are in the academic enrolment process. There was a 1.7 percent split between vocational and occupational enrolment. The 60-40 split was a figure that appeared in the national concept document and the WCED was brainstorming on how long it would take them to reach the target.

Regarding the criteria for implementation, he said they would look at whether a school had the right infrastructure, human and physical resources, and whether the school was able to conform to the standards of a technical school. 

The WCED did an extensive amount of career guidance, but their data confirmed that there were large numbers of learners who were unsure of what they wanted to do. That was where the Department felt the General Education Certificate would assist because it had an intimations assessment built into it. The assessment allowed the system to intimate the talents of learners and guided them in that direction. 

Mr Dhroonlall Haripersad, Director: Curriculum Development: Further Education and Training, WCED, said the expansion of technical vocational education would not lead to the closure of academic schools because a majority of secondary schools in the province were already offering some form of technical education. In the expansion of the programme, the Department looked at the current infrastructure available in most schools and they would be allowed to reintroduce such subjects pending the refurbishment of the existing infrastructure and the resourcing of the schools.

Through spatial planning, the Department tried repositioning schools in districts where access to programmes could be based on learners’ interests, aptitude profiles, and future career aspirations. They looked at what each district in the province provided for post-school activities.

The Department engaged with all the districts and asked them to look at the socio-economic conditions and current economic activities, economic action zones and engage with local municipalities to determine the subjects that would allow learners to benefit from post-school socio-economic opportunities.

There was a limited number of technical vocational high schools in the province and expansion could only be done based on human resources, infrastructure, and financial resources. There were also limited numbers because the Department would have to comply with workshop occupational safety requirements, and technical vocational education was expensive.

Mr Neil Simons, Senior Educational Specialist, WCED,  said most of the agricultural schools in the province were in the Cape Winelands and the Eden district. There were not many agricultural schools in the Cape Peninsula, but there were schools offering agricultural technology and management as subjects in the east and south of the metro. Most technical schools were in the east of the metro. The expansion of infrastructure was important for the schools to be able to offer specific subjects within a vocational space.

Mr Ashric Don, Deputy Chief Education Specialist, WCED, said the pilot schools project was a Department of Basic Education (DBE) project with a total of 1 000 pilot schools nationally. The criteria used focused on whether the schools had the necessary infrastructure, including internet access and computer labs. There was engagement with districts in investigating and recommending some of the schools that had the potential to participate in the project. The criteria included the willingness of the principal and school management team to participate in the project.

Further discussion

The Chairperson asked how much capital the province would need to add subjects such as coding, robotics, and other technical subjects in schools. She asked for clarity on when the WCED planned to roll out the establishment of 500 coding and robotics clubs in schools. She asked how the Department planned to encourage learners to take mathematics as many of the technical subjects required mathematics, including coding and robotics.

She was concerned about the declining number of learners who took the subjects and the lack of encouragement. She asked for clarity about the 500 guides developed by the Reach Programme and wanted to know whether the WCED was giving stipends to schools where broadband was not installed.

Mr Christians was also concerned about the mathematics uptake in schools and said some of the learners wanted to do work that required mathematics but were unable to do so because their schools only offered mathematical literacy.

Responses

Mr Mahomed recalled an application from the directorate that requested half a billion Rands for implementing coding and robotics in the schools. The reality was that it would be extremely expensive to implement coding and robotics in the best possible way. The WCED would show the Committee the draft budget for the project.

The Department was experiencing “maths-shedding” as students drifted away from mathematics to mathematical literacy. This was because some university courses, such as a Bachelor of Arts degree, did not require mathematics for entrance. The other issue the Department had identified was a shortage of mathematics teachers in parts of the system.

The Department had recognised a need to revamp its initial maths strategy. The revamped strategy had several approaches in attempting to reignite interest in the subject. The needs in the system far exceeded what the Department was able to provide. There was a discussion about adding one more technically oriented school in each of the districts, but the issue was whether the Department could afford it.

Mr Don said the Cape Town Science Centre had developed 500 robotic kits in collaboration with the WCED and 20 kits were delivered in each district in the province for teachers' capacity-building. The remaining kits were still in the Cape Town Science Centre for use in the 48 clubs they were planning to establish.

The tender process for the rollout plan for the WCED’s  500 clubs plan was in progress and the application for R51 million had been approved. The resources to establish the clubs would focus on the foundation, intermediate and senior phases. The delivery stage was expected to be in October 2023, and the implementation and rollout would be in 2024.

On the maths issue, he said coding and robotics were based on computational thinking and engineering design process. In developing computational thinking, logical thinking was also developed. It has been proven that maths also improved because learners learnt how to solve problems. The Department was excited about the establishment of the 500 clubs, starting as extra-mural activities, and wanted to infuse it within the curriculum once it had been gazetted.

On broadband in schools, he said the numbers may be different because the Department had started with the upgrading of infrastructure and there could be fewer than the  237 schools that were reported not to have access to the internet. The schools received a stipend to get internet access for at least their office spaces. The Department’s e-learning directorate was busy with a project to provide the schools with technology infrastructure.      

Mr Mahomed said the 237 schools were those that did not get access in the rollout of broadband because of the system in the province, and the measure taken by the Department was to give them a stipend to access the internet.

Mr Haripersad said that in expanding access to agricultural management practices and their technologies, the Department promoted modern agricultural techniques and provided schools with greenhouses and chicken farms where they could start doing small agriculture that did not require massive land.

Regarding the capital required, he said the Department had obtained a limited amount of money from the infrastructure grant that enabled them to provide additional workshops, but if they had to expand exponentially to meet the 40/60 target, it would require a far more substantive injection.

The practical component of such projects also needed to be looked at because they required resources. The WCED was the only department in the country that provided a per capita allocation per learner for all the subjects that offered a practical component.

All schools that offer technical vocational programmes must offer technical mathematics, mathematics, physical sciences, and technical science as compulsory subjects. The Department had made strides to meet the challenges of technical maths and technical sciences and there was a massive improvement in the subjects. The main issue was the recognition of the subjects by higher education institutions. The issue was also tabled by the national DBE.

The Chairperson wanted to know how much it would cost to implement broadband in the remaining schools since 1 297 schools had broadband out of the 1 523 total number of schools. She asked if it was possible to access some of the funds from the infrastructure grant to ensure the implementation of broadband internet in those schools.

She said it was almost shocking to hear about half a billion Rands injected into a project, but when considering the amount of money that went into education, one would consider it a drop in the ocean. She asked the WCED to say in the draft budget how they intended to scale up to ensure that every school received the best possible model to implement coding and robotics as a subject.   

Mr Christians said Parliament passed the Western Cape Provincial Education Amendment Bill in November 2018. One of the sections was about collaboration schools and donor-funded schools. He wanted to know how far the Department was in interacting with businesses and communities. This would help because government did not have the funds and would wait for a long time if they depended on government. 

Mr Mahomed said broadband internet was not implemented in all the 1 523 schools because of a structural challenge with the 237 schools, but he could not recall what the challenge was. He would speak to the department responsible for the implementation and send a written response to the Committee. 

Regarding the Amendment Bill, he said the national DBE faced a challenge on the initiative. He would send a written response from the Department’s legal team on where the process stood. To his knowledge, the process of collaboration schools was in progress.

Closing remarks

The Chairperson thanked the Department for its presentation. She was sure the Committee and the Department would have more discussions on STEAMAC in the future because the children in the province would like to take the subjects so that they could participate in the economy of the province.

Given that agriculture was the second biggest GDP contributor in the provincial economy and subjects such as coding and robotics were becoming pertinent within the agricultural and car manufacturing sectors, being able to implement the subjects would mean a lot to the communities. Ensuring an uptick in mathematics would also ensure that the children would be able to study those courses at TVET colleges, universities and other institutions of higher education and training.

The Committee Secretary noted the follow-up information required from the WCED.

The meeting was adjourned.