Education:
(1) (a) What factors allowed for the underspending of her Department’s annual budget, given the shortage of public schools and the placement for thousands of learners, (b) what programmes currently exist to (i) capacitate teachers to educate and train learners better in a changing academic environment, (ii) ensure teachers are at the forefront of utilising technology in the classroom and (iii) ensure that teachers are familiar with understanding, navigating and dealing with the psychological impact of harmful socio-economic factors;
(2) what is the (a) short-, (b) medium- and (c) long-term academic implications of not having allocated desks to thousands of children in the province?
(1) (a) Factors contributing towards the underspend included delays in the construction industry (affecting school fencing projects – which have all since been completed), the Basic Education Employment Initiative rollover funding for use in the second phase of the project, and underspending on conditional and emergency funding due to disruption of departmental programmes because of Covid-19.
The Department only returned only R44 million to Provincial Treasury last year, as a result of Covid-19 disrupting some departmental programmes – that was just 0.18% of last year’s budget.
Information relating to the under expenditure was fully disclosed in the WCED’s published Annual Report for 2020/21, and discussed in the Standing Committee.
The member’s question implies that this funding could have been used to build schools or assist with placement of learners. This is false. The funding was for specific programmes and could not be shifted to other purposes. This has been explained repeatedly to members and the media, so perpetuating this false narrative is unacceptable.
(b) (i) The members reference to “changing academic environment” is extremely broad, and he would need to provide a specific area of interest to enable me to provide a response (given the vast number of programmes undertaken for teachers in the Department).
(ii) Since the start of Covid, attendance of teacher training programmes has increased exponentially, especially in respect of workshops for digital teaching and learning. For eLearning alone, over 10 000 individuals have registered for programmes to develop their skills in this field.
Most of these opportunities were done on an open invitation to all teachers across all districts in need of assistance to utilise technology for teaching and learning. For this financial year, Directorate: eLearning hosted 156 workshops across the province covering 59 different topics, including the Spreadsheet and Data visualisation series, the Microsoft Series, and the Google Fundamentals Series.
Topics like teaching with WhatsApp, informal (online and digital) assessment series and transforming maths with specific product sets are examples of how WCED creates learning opportunities for teachers to remain relevant in a changing environment. In addition to equipping teachers with the technological and pedagogical knowledge sets, the psychosocial well-being of teachers and learners is important. The Department hosted an 8-part seminar series covering topics such as Cyber Psychology, Social Media, and Heroic Content Creation.
The Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute (CTLI) provides a range of ICT Integration courses on a developmental pathway (beginner, intermediate and advanced) to equip teachers to teach in the 21st century classroom. This programme focuses mainly on equipping teachers to use digital and online tools and strategies for effective integration of ICT in teaching and learning. Online and Face-to-Face training are hands-on with a strong emphasis on immediate application in the classroom.
With the relaxation of COVID restrictions, the CTLI will resume face-to-face Smart Classroom training. This programme (Level 1 and Level 2) supports the Smart Classroom rollout of Directorate: e-Learning. This programme is only offered face-to-face to ensure practical mastery of the equipment and integration in the classroom.
(iii) The WCED through the CTLI has collaborated with the Directorate: Strategic People Management in terms of psycho-social support to school managers to understand the changing environment and effects of pandemic on both teacher and learner. This will now also be rolled out to teachers through assistance with the EHWP Service Provider.
CTLI is also collaborating with Directorate: Specialised Education in terms of psychosocial support to teachers to navigate and dealing with socio-economic factors.
(2) (a), (b) and (c)
73 572 desks have been delivered to schools for the 2022 school year. Additional desks have also been manufactured for the WCED and are being delivered as required by schools.
The Department is not aware of any school that does not have enough desks to accommodate the learners that are currently attending school daily. The claims that “thousands of children” have not been allocated desks must be substantiated by the member. If he is aware of such a circumstance, he has a duty to report it and he should provide my office with the information to substantiate his claim immediately so that it can be addressed.
