DBE 2023/24 Q1 Performance; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Opening remarks by Deputy Minister
Dr Reginah Mhaule, Deputy Minister of Basic Education, explained that she has a Cabinet meeting shortly so would not attend this meeting but the DBE team will be led by the Director general. There are four days left before learners start with matric exams. There is concern about the storm in Kwa-Zulu Natal and the province is making efforts for all learners to attend their exams and that exams are not disrupted. She invite the Portfolio Committee and parents to support the learners during their examinations.

Mr Hubert Mweli, DBE Director-General, said the Annual Report showed 90% indicators achieved and 10% partially achieved. The Department was surprised by this achievement. He thanked the Minister, Deputy Minister and Committee for the oversight at schools. This achievement would not have been possible without their hard work.

Department of Basic Education Quarter 1 performance 2023/24
Dr Stephen Taylor, DBE Director for Research Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation, presented the performance indicators and target achievements for DBE's five programmes as elaborated in the Annual Performance Plan:
Programme 1: Administration
Programme 2: Curriculum Policy, Support and Monitoring
Programme 3: Teachers, Education Human Resources, and Institutional Development
Programme 4: Planning, Information and Assessment
Programme 5: Educational Enrichment Services

Some of its highlights included:
• Minister of Basic Education presented the 2023/24 Budget Vote in Parliament on 18 May 2023.
• Deputy Minister of Basic Education and South African Council for Educators (SACE) attended the Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities (AFTRA) Conference 9-12 May 2023.
• Monitoring of Learner Support Programmes: Winter camps monitoring visits in GP, NW, NC, and FS Provinces and five Centres in GP and 11 Centres in MP for Saturday Classes.
• The Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) under the banner of the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI), is currently in Phase IV and concluded end of September 2023. By end of Q1, the sector successfully managed to employ 235 939 youth in public schools. The Initiative assists the sector in curbing unemployment amongst youth whilst addressing identified learning losses.

Ms Ntsetsa Molalekoa, DBE Acting CFO, presented the financial report.
• DBE Appropriation budget for 2023/24 is R31.783 billion
• 82% of the budget is allocated to transfer payments as follows:
Conditional Grants: R25.329 billion
Transfers to Public Entities: R179.0 million
Other Transfers: R1.483 billion
•The remainder of the budget (R4.792 billion) is allocated to:
Compensation of Employees: R557.5 million
Goods and Services: R2.461 billion
Interest on Rent and Land: R36.2 million
Payments of Capital Assets: R1.737 billion
•Total actual expenditure for 2023/24 Quarter 1 amounts to R9.942 billion.

Discussion
Ms N Adoons (ANC) asked for DBE's progress in implementing its audit action plan in response to the Auditor General’s findings. Does the plan respond to all the recommendations made by the AG?

On the performance targets for the number of capacity building programmes which have exceeded 50% of annual target, will DBE exceed the set target to optimise the effectiveness of the first quarter?

Ms Adoons asked how will DBE ensure that planned infrastructure projects are implemented successfully. What measures has DBE taken in the first term to address the challenges of the previous financial year? What is the progress on Focus Schools and what outcomes should we expect at the 2023/24 financial year end.

What structured training does DBE implement for the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative to increase the skills of beneficiaries? On the consequence management and the final written warning given to em

ployees who failed to submit reports on time, what other function do these staff members occupy and are they involved in the procurement process?

Ms M Moroane (ANC) asked about expenditure performance levels on conditional grants; the progress on infrastructure maintenance and the spend on maintenance as a percentage of infrastructure expenditure.

The Chairperson noted that there are three provinces which are slow in placing the Funza Lushaka bursary recipients. What could be the reason for that and how can DBE intervene to speed up the process?

On slide 14 Dr Taylor mentioned project management. Are teachers and principals trained on project management? If so, how is the training distributed amongst provinces and districts? Slide 15 mentions the international summit – what do our teachers gain from the outcomes of DBE's international participation? How does the DBE stimulate short-term exchange programmes for South African teachers to train abroad?

The Chairperson asked how far is Basic Education in meeting the National Development Plan priorities as far as maths, science and technology. She asked if Funza Lushaka recipients take part in the inclusive education programme in their training as teachers. On the Early Childhood Development (ECD) delivery model how did DBE solicit inputs from ordinary members of the public?.

The Chairperson asked if the General Education Certificate (GEC) pilot is benefitting Grade 9 learners particularly in the rural areas. If that is the case, what are the outcomes? The support the South African Council for Educators (SACE) is giving educators was not satisfactory as SACE was not prioritising educators. What were the outcomes for South African learner participation in the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS) and Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS) assessment in Grade 5 and 9 and what are DBE’s plans to help improve results?

DBE responses
Mr Mweli replied that the learners are being prepared for PIRLS and TIMSS. When the field results were released in May 2023, one of the experts said that we need to look at whether PIRLS is appropriate for South African children. South Africa is testing learners in more than one language and the expert asked if this benefits South African learners. The DBE has presented its improvement plan to the Committee to show that its focus is on African languages. Drs Mbude and Mthembu will elaborate on this topic. TIMSS results will be coming out soon and DBE is quite optimistic they would be able to improve.

The GCE pilot should benefit all learners especially those in previously disadvantaged communities. For input on the ECD model we used the Civil Society Forum representing over 200 organisations in the districts and provinces. Non-government organisations communicated the new delivery model and solicited inputs from stakeholders.

On the National Development Plan (NDP) targets, we have found that the targets are quite stretched. Prof Mary Metcalfe of the National Planning Commission has been meeting with DBE. We have been working to ensure that everyone is directed to improve in line with the NDP targets. We know that our teachers are benefitting from the international training programmes like United Nations International Scientific and Culture Organisation (UNESCO) and African Union. Some of our teachers are nominated to participate in some of these activities internationally.

On the low placement levels of Funza Lushaka bursary recipients in Free State, Eastern Cape, and Mpumalanga, it is due to budget constraints as the budgets of those provinces are quite stretched. This makes it difficult to place all available teachers as the budget only allows a certain number.

Mr Mweli said that DBE can forward the documents on the expenditure of conditional grants as well as expenditure on infrastructure maintenance.

In response to Ms Adoons question on financial disclosures, he will ask Human Resources if the employees disclosed their involvement in supply chain or not.

There are several skills available for young people to choose from during the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) to increase their capacity . Mr Padayachee will explain the types of programmes available to equip the youth to be able to get work beyond this initiative.

Mr Mweli replied that DBE is implementing all the AG recommendations. If there is a recommendation DBE did not implement yet due to challenges in the system, its intention is to implement all of them.

In the meeting last week, Mr Mweli had spoken about consequence management saying that DBE has not received the internal audit report yet and therefore does not know who should be corrected through consequence management.

Ms Simone Geyer, DBE Deputy Director General (DDG): Delivery and Support and Acting DDG: Office of Director General, spoke about training of teachers and principals in program management. She said there are a number of ways in which training is done and monitored, it starts with a plan, each teacher and principal have to identify what the training needs are in terms of self-assessment and that informs what the schools improvement plan will be, and those areas will be covered in the individual training. In addition, the plan develops into a district improvement plan where the training needs are captured. Within that plan there are modules which the principal can do which are conducted by the provincial departments. Project management and finance management are included.

Based on the self-identified assessment of the principal, they are then selected to undergo training. They can also be selected based on the performance of the school within particular provinces and districts to undergo prioritised training. Dr Mbude will explain the planning for the reading programmes.

Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana, DBE DDG for Special Projects, replied that PIRLS is a study of 49-50 countries on developed countries. South Africa was not competing to win as we wanted to see where the country is in relation to the education system and how we have developed. The following issue was raised, firstly there is a 25% that the board cannot account for due to the answers provided by the learners, this is due to the translation of the PIRLS test in various languages. South Africa is the only country that was tested in all eleven official languages which made it difficult for the international examination board who did not have the capacity to understand what the children meant to say since they took the test in their language which was later translated to English for the board to understand.

The second part is that DBE wanted to determine where our learners are in terms of reading, reading for meaning and it is important to note that all language reading instructions and pedagogies available in the country are not language specific, they are designed around English which is a west generic language. Therefore, they cannot use those instructions to teach the children how to read in their home language. DBE has put together a plan that is going to be language specific. We are at the stage of costing and looking at the different linguistic factors and typologies.

South Africa has a system where its only in grade 1, 2 and 3 that we have mother tongue education and that benefits and advances English and Afrikaans learners. The PIRLS results showed that it is English and Afrikaans learners who are doing well in reading. We are looking at advancing mother tongue based bilingual education to the rest of the country by 2023 as the Eastern Cape pilot was successful and we want all learners to benefit, not just English and Afrikaans learners. One of the PIRLS recommendation was to focus on developing African languages because it is very clear that it is those learners who are struggling in the system particularly relating to their language development.

Dr Barney Mthembu, Deputy Director-General: Curriculum, added that the PIRLS results have provided DBE with an idea of how learners are performing on reading for meaning and reading for learning. There were some issues around content, terminology and context validity and they have responded by looking at ways and means to provide feedback to teachers, learners, schools, and parents on the progress of the learners. Continuous assessment of the system in areas of teaching and learning show that we need to report continuously to be able to close the gap. In future we will not be surprised by the results of the PIRLS because we would have properly equipped our learners and know our strengths and weaknesses.

Mr Paddy Padayachee Deputy Director General: Planning, Quality Assessment and Monitoring and Evaluation, addressed the training of the youth in PYEI. The Initiative is currently in stage four which ended on 30 September 2023. The youth are provided with skills to ensure that they have better opportunities when the programme ends such as curriculum assistant to support the educator in the class. Over 40 000 were trained in the current cohort, with 20 000 as reading champions and 20 000 youth trained in care and support to took care of psychosocial issues of learners.

As for the handyman, women, general school assistant who dealt with maintenance and infrastructure in the school, they did internal training which covered occupational health and safety as well as maintenance guidelines for schools, there were about 15 000. We provided entrepreneurship training, career guidance, digital skills, financial literacy and mentoring, coaching, business pitching, social and emotional wellness. Since we have no budget for training in those categories, DBE has partners who do the training at their cost, and webinars were held which looked at personal development and branding.

Mr Solly Mafoko, DBE Chief Director: School Infrastructure Planning and Delivery, replied about maintenance spending. DBE will draw up the numbers because at this stage they did not have overall expenditure. DBE has a budget of R2.0 billion and the expenditure is estimated to be about R1.2 billion with several project completed and another about to be completed.

Mr Mweli said that if there were any unanswered questions, DBE will send a written response.

There were no follow up questions. The Chairperson noted the progress in the first quarter and looked forward to receiving subsequent quarterly reports. She allowed DBE to leave.

The Committee adopted the minutes of 26 September, 17 and 18 October 2023.

The Chairperson reminded the Committee of the physical meeting in Parliament on 26 October to deliberate on the BELA Bill.

Meeting adjourned.