Honourable Speaker/Chairperson Honourable Members,
Fellow South Africans,
It is now 26 years after the dawn of democracy and as the President so eloquently delivered in his SONA address, it is now 30 years since Nelson Mandela’s march to freedom. However, for many of our country’s people, we are not free. We remain trapped in poverty and unemployment. We remain in a time warp of an unfair and unequal society.
This was made even more evident by the President’s inability to give direction to the country in terms of the early childhood development implementation as well as the quality of teaching and learning in grades R to 3. The level of preparedness by the Department of Education to implement early childhood development after many years of planning is worrisome, as access to early childhood development
remains the crux in preventing the high dropout rates that occur later in high school.
The president together with the Department of Basic Education has to date, failed to deal with the poor levels of reading and writing in the foundation phase of our schools. The real reason for the high dropout rate in high school is because we do not get reading, writing and comprehension at the required level in the foundation phase. The President has stated that every 10-year-old needs to be able to read for
meaning, however, the truth is that with the Department of Education promoting learners in grades R to 3 without them being able to read is the real reason for our massive learner failure and dropout rates later on.
It is commendable to introduce coding and robotics in grades R to 3 but when our learners are unable to grasp the fundamentals of reading and writing, how will they grasp the fundamentals of coding and robotics?
The President has also reminded the country that half of all young people are unemployed. The truth is that these unemployment statistics have a direct correlation on the quality and type of education that our young people are receiving in the early years of their schooling careers. The education system is failing our young people by lowering standards and promoting learners, thereby setting them up for failure later in their school careers.
Mr. President, in your SONA address you told the nation that you were wearing a suit made by a local designer; this is commendable. Nonetheless, our schools are not adequately equipped to prepare learners in the foundation phase with the skills to get them ready for the world of work and entrepreneurship. Skills, abilities and sharp minds are honed during the early childhood development years, but we are not getting it right.