Annual Performance Plan Jaarlikse ... - National Treasury

FOREWORD BY MEC
I believe this APP represents closer alignment to national and provincial strategies and outcomes.
Last year, schools in the Western Cape delivered strong matric results, of which we can all be proud. But, we can and must
do better. We can never be happy with an endorsement rate of only 13.53% of our 17,554 ex-HOR and ex-DET learners,
while in ex-CED schools the endorsement figure for the 6,501 learners of 2006, was 52.13%.
In this respect, I have already announced six clear interventions that we will be making, and these are:
1. Embark on the Quality Improvement, Development, Support and Upliftment Programme (QUIDS UP). This initiative,
led by Minister Pandor, aims to allocate new learning resources to schools, especially in poor and disadvantaged
communities. The programme includes all primary schools in quintiles one and two. These primary schools are feeder
schools to secondary schools that have poor results. It also includes about 80 high schools with poor Senior Certificate
results.
2. Set targets. By the end of March 2007 each high school in the province will have set an overall pass target, a matric
endorsement target and Maths/Science targets for 2007. These targets must be formally signed off by the school governing
body, including the RCL representatives. In fact, as 2007 is the last year of the existing curriculum, all schools will be
encouraged to pull out all the stops to set individual performance records across the board. I also want targets to reduce the
number of dropouts for grades 10, 11, and 12 for 2007 and subsequent years. Finally, literacy and numeracy targets will also
be set during the course of 2007.
3. Broaden our base: work on literacy and numeracy across the board. What is also very clear to me is that we cannot
just look for weaknesses in our high schools. We need to work in our primary schools as well. Our Literacy and Numeracy
Strategy must be strengthened – especially the family literacy programmes and our provincial Language Transformation
Plan.
4. Make our schools a safe learning home for all. Some of the issues that have impacted severely on our schools this
year and previous years, are the levels of violence in and around our schools, and the aggressive behaviour of learners. We
will implement an unprecedented inter-sectoral campaign to build a safe learning home for 2007 and beyond. Discipline
patterns and codes of conduct must be set and maintained. Value-adding school improvement plans will be put in place. We
will be assisting all our schools to review and strengthen codes of conduct by October 2007.
5. Monitor and evaluate. I believe the redesign process of the Department must lead to greater research capacity,
monitoring, evaluation and accountability. As a learning organisation, one of our key challenges is to understand our context,
challenges and possibilities and respond to them.
6. Tackle the situation in the 34 schools still performing below 60%. If Iqayiya Secondary School in Khayelitsha could
notch an incredible pass rate of 94% in 2006, up from 39% the previous year, clearly we need to examine this type of
success, and try and replicate it throughout the system.
We cannot continue to tolerate under-performance. We have conducted a full analysis of each under-performing school and
where the main or contributing factors are lack of effective leadership and management, or of problems with fundamentally
weak teachers, we will certainly consider options of redeployment of school principals and senior management teams, in line
with accepted labour practices.
Other key projects for the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) this year, include the implementation of the first
phase of the redesign of the Department; further development of key policies; the development of local education
provisioning plans; the development and introduction of an improved salary dispensation for principals and improving the
administrative support for schools.
Education has been allocated the biggest share of 37% of the total budget for 2007/08, with an emphasis on skills
development, teacher development, remuneration for teachers and administrative personnel, and infrastructure provisioning.
The focus on Early Childhood Development (ECD), Further Education and Training (FET) colleges, and general education
through QUIDS UP, builds quality throughout the system. The additional funds give real hope to parents, teachers and
schools. We will use this injection to build human capital in the province and take further steps to entrench quality education.
Infrastructure remains a challenge but we are exploring a number of options to supplement this allocation. When one
considers allocations to sister departments, which will also assist education generally, for example social development funds
to fight substance abuse, and allocations for promoting school sport, safety and skills development, it means even more
good news.
I look forward to a year in which we can accelerate our efforts to implement strategies, and to deliver more endorsements,
and more learners with maths and science pass rates, and more learners in our FET colleges in pursuit of a better life for all.