ID EDUCATION POLICY
Bridging the Divides through Education
ID’s Vision for Education
The ID’s vision for education is one where well resourced schools are at the centre of all communities, and are responsive to the broad educational needs of both children and adults. The terrible educational divides of the past are bridged with no one being forced to receive a sub-standard education. The ID’s vision is to place education at the centre of South Africa’s transformation agenda.
Current Challenges
The ID believes that there has to be an improvement in the functioning of our schools, many of which are clearly failing to equip our children with the necessary skills to cope with the demands of higher education and South Africa’s broader economy.
• There are still over 4000 schools without electricity and over 2500 schools without water and sanitation in our country. 4 in 5 schools in South Africa do not have any form of a library.
• There are still too many learners in South Africa who are being excluded or discriminated against as a result of their families being unable to pay school fees. Costs such as transport, textbooks, uniforms and nutrition are also a barrier.
• Our educational outcomes are still extremely poor, falling behind world and even standards of many poorer countries.
• There is a great divide in educational outcomes which correspond with poverty and race. Government’s “no fee schools” has been rolled out in a haphazard way.
• There is a massive teacher supply and skills shortage. As a result of the aparthied legacy, over 60 000 teachers in South Africa do not even have matric qualifications.
• Many schools have massively overcrowded classrooms and teachers have to teach in classrooms with eighty or more learners.
• The OBE system is massively resource intensive and requires teachers who are well equipped to implement it. The introduction of OBE has widened the divide in our education system, as less resourced schools have struggled to teach even the basics under the new system.
• Rural schools are often the most marginalised and suffer from a lack of infrastructure, teachers and a curriculum that is often inappropriate for their context. The problem of farm schools and learners being denied an education is still an ongoing problem.
• There are hundreds of thousands of children with disabilities in South Africa who are currently being denied an education. All children with disabilities need to immediately be given an education and stimulation that corresponds to their needs.
• Many of South Africa’s schools have become a site of extreme social problems including drugs, violence and teenage pregnancies.
• Many higher education institutions, in particular those that were historically disadvantaged, have struggled to maintain their financial viability. In addition, the State has not made available sufficient funds to assist students from poor communities to fund their studies.
ID’s Proposed Solutions
Prioritise School Infrastructure Development
Concessions must be granted in certain areas whereby the private sector and civil society is invited to tender on partnerships to deliver school infrastructure. Within two years every school in South Africa must have access to some form of energy. Within the same time period we would ensure that every school has access to water and sanitation services. Provide adequately resourced science and computer laboratories to every school within five years and ensure that all of them are linked up to a wireless internet service.
Child Education Grant
A Child education grant must be introduced which would be administered through the schools and district education officers. The ID believes that a learner from a poor community deserves to be funded no matter which school they choose to attend. The grant could also cover costs such as transport, uniforms and textbooks.
Expand the School Nutrition Programme
Expand the school nutrition programme to cover all secondary schools in poor communities. The programme must also operate over weekends as the hunger of a child is felt everyday. Food for the nutrition programme could be supplied by unemployed people in the surrounding community.
Bursary system for Teachers
Expand the bursary scheme for people wanting to study teaching as a profession.
Reintroduce Teacher Training Colleges across the country.
Teaching assistants
The ID would support a teacher assistants’ model whereby unemployed people from the surrounding community could be hired to assist in schools where the learner/teacher ratios are especially high. These teacher assistants could help enforce discipline.
Principal training
A comprehensive principal training programme imparting the appropriate skills needed to perform as a principal.
Improved management on a district level
Proper checks of schools must be conducted regularly with district officers responding to any needs. Proper monitoring and evaluation assessments at the classroom level to track the progress of our children’s educational outcomes. Assessments must be undertaken of all our teachers and those requiring skills development must be put on intensive courses. Teachers who do not possess the skills to deliver a quality education to our children must be trained or taken out of the system.
Inclusive Education
The ID maintains that the government has an absolute responsibility to provide every child with a disability an education or stimulation appropriate to their needs. The ID would build more special schools in the country. We would also provide mainstream education to as many children with disabilities as possible.
Schools as nodes of support and care
Schools must become the centre of all our communities where the broader social problems of children are identified by the educators and action is taken to address them. Every school must have a social worker or at the very least a child youth care worker. Services such as the delivery of grants and the registration of birth certificates and identity documents can take place at schools.
Provision of Higher Education Institutions in Rural Areas
Establish universities and universities of technologies in underserved rural areas.
Increase the Amount allocated to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme
The ID would bolster the amount of money being directed towards the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
The ID’s vision for education is one where well resourced schools are at the centre of all communities, and are responsive to the broad educational needs of both children and adults. The terrible educational divides of the past are bridged with no one being forced to receive a sub-standard education. The ID’s vision is to place education at the centre of South Africa’s transformation agenda.
Current Challenges
The ID believes that there has to be an improvement in the functioning of our schools, many of which are clearly failing to equip our children with the necessary skills to cope with the demands of higher education and South Africa’s broader economy.
• There are still over 4000 schools without electricity and over 2500 schools without water and sanitation in our country. 4 in 5 schools in South Africa do not have any form of a library.
• There are still too many learners in South Africa who are being excluded or discriminated against as a result of their families being unable to pay school fees. Costs such as transport, textbooks, uniforms and nutrition are also a barrier.
• Our educational outcomes are still extremely poor, falling behind world and even standards of many poorer countries.
• There is a great divide in educational outcomes which correspond with poverty and race. Government’s “no fee schools” has been rolled out in a haphazard way.
• There is a massive teacher supply and skills shortage. As a result of the aparthied legacy, over 60 000 teachers in South Africa do not even have matric qualifications.
• Many schools have massively overcrowded classrooms and teachers have to teach in classrooms with eighty or more learners.
• The OBE system is massively resource intensive and requires teachers who are well equipped to implement it. The introduction of OBE has widened the divide in our education system, as less resourced schools have struggled to teach even the basics under the new system.
• Rural schools are often the most marginalised and suffer from a lack of infrastructure, teachers and a curriculum that is often inappropriate for their context. The problem of farm schools and learners being denied an education is still an ongoing problem.
• There are hundreds of thousands of children with disabilities in South Africa who are currently being denied an education. All children with disabilities need to immediately be given an education and stimulation that corresponds to their needs.
• Many of South Africa’s schools have become a site of extreme social problems including drugs, violence and teenage pregnancies.
• Many higher education institutions, in particular those that were historically disadvantaged, have struggled to maintain their financial viability. In addition, the State has not made available sufficient funds to assist students from poor communities to fund their studies.
ID’s Proposed Solutions
Prioritise School Infrastructure Development
Concessions must be granted in certain areas whereby the private sector and civil society is invited to tender on partnerships to deliver school infrastructure. Within two years every school in South Africa must have access to some form of energy. Within the same time period we would ensure that every school has access to water and sanitation services. Provide adequately resourced science and computer laboratories to every school within five years and ensure that all of them are linked up to a wireless internet service.
Child Education Grant
A Child education grant must be introduced which would be administered through the schools and district education officers. The ID believes that a learner from a poor community deserves to be funded no matter which school they choose to attend. The grant could also cover costs such as transport, uniforms and textbooks.
Expand the School Nutrition Programme
Expand the school nutrition programme to cover all secondary schools in poor communities. The programme must also operate over weekends as the hunger of a child is felt everyday. Food for the nutrition programme could be supplied by unemployed people in the surrounding community.
Bursary system for Teachers
Expand the bursary scheme for people wanting to study teaching as a profession.
Reintroduce Teacher Training Colleges across the country.
Teaching assistants
The ID would support a teacher assistants’ model whereby unemployed people from the surrounding community could be hired to assist in schools where the learner/teacher ratios are especially high. These teacher assistants could help enforce discipline.
Principal training
A comprehensive principal training programme imparting the appropriate skills needed to perform as a principal.
Improved management on a district level
Proper checks of schools must be conducted regularly with district officers responding to any needs. Proper monitoring and evaluation assessments at the classroom level to track the progress of our children’s educational outcomes. Assessments must be undertaken of all our teachers and those requiring skills development must be put on intensive courses. Teachers who do not possess the skills to deliver a quality education to our children must be trained or taken out of the system.
Inclusive Education
The ID maintains that the government has an absolute responsibility to provide every child with a disability an education or stimulation appropriate to their needs. The ID would build more special schools in the country. We would also provide mainstream education to as many children with disabilities as possible.
Schools as nodes of support and care
Schools must become the centre of all our communities where the broader social problems of children are identified by the educators and action is taken to address them. Every school must have a social worker or at the very least a child youth care worker. Services such as the delivery of grants and the registration of birth certificates and identity documents can take place at schools.
Provision of Higher Education Institutions in Rural Areas
Establish universities and universities of technologies in underserved rural areas.
Increase the Amount allocated to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme
The ID would bolster the amount of money being directed towards the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
