Former Higher Education minister Blade Nzimande, President Cyril Ramaphosa, and Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube at the annual Basic Education Lekgotla in Ekurhuleni.
Image: National Department of Basic Education
President Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged a critical 30-year delay in implementing Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes.
The president's remarks come amid discussions on strengthening foundational learning and improving educational outcomes for 13.5 million South African learners.
“The minister is absolutely right when she says we should have started 30 years ago with Early Childhood Development, and if there is any mistake that we have made as a nation and as a government, it is this one...Thirty years ago, we were blindsided. We should have realised that to get this country to be important, on a much higher plane of development, we should have started ECD then,” he said.
Ramaphosa was speaking during his opening address of the Basic Education Lekgotla at the Birchwood Hotel, Ekurhuleni, on Thursday, where various professionals within the basic education sector gathered for the three-day engagement.
Held under the theme, “Strengthening foundations for learning for a resilient future fit education system”, industry experts discussed issues directed towards strengthening ECD for improved learning in later years; as well as providing support and development programmes to equip educators with skills, pedagogy, and methodology that will help them nurture young and growing minds.
On the sidelines of the Lekgotla, Ramaphosa responded to the recent visit by Afrikaner right-wing group, AfriForum, seeking an audience at the White House on the Land Expropriation Act recently passed by him.
The group, which has been slammed across the country, says the reason it went to the White House is because the Expropriation Act undermines private property rights.
Responding to calls for Ramaphosa to act against leaders of the group, Ramaphosa said: “They are just sowing divisions and that is not a nation-building act... I would say that we need to send a clear message to them that as far as we are concerned, and as proud South Africans, we prefer that we should all stay here and solve our problems.”
CEO of BlindSA, Jace Nair, spoke on the challenges faced by the blind and partially blind community, calling for the White Paper Six on special needs education to be reviewed to offer inclusive education to the blind and partially blind learners.
“We hear the president calling for coding, which is a foreign concept to us. We call for White Paper Six to be reviewed to ensure inclusive education is opened to the blind and partially blind communities. This requires a call for the twin-track approach to inclusive education that will ensure support given special needs schools as less than 50% of these have proper multimedia reading materials in accessible formats available to blind and partially blind learners,” he said.
Gwarube called for a unified approach to governance and support for the sector.
“I am really encouraged by his support for the sector and the work we are trying to do to strengthen foundational learning and improve learning outcomes. The future of the 13.5 million learners in our country depends on the decisions we make today.... We need a unified approach to strengthen our government. Our education and policy direction must remain clean and unwavering even as the political environment shifts,” she said.
siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za