Education bid ‘failed’

EFFORTS to raise the quality of education for poor children have largely failed in South Africa, says former finance minister Trevor Manuel.

Apart from a small minority of black children who attend former white schools and a small minority of schools performing well in largely black areas, he said, the quality of public education remained poor.

Manuel was the keynote speaker at a conference hosted by the KwaZulu-Natal branch of the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) in Durban on Friday.

He lamented the fact that the fifth anniversary of the formal handover of the National Development Plan to the government had passed on August 15 “without ceremony or virtually any observance”.

The plan’s vision on education promised greats changes in the education sphere by 2030, including access to quality early childhood education, literacy and numeracy levels to reach international levels, as well as higher education contributing to higher incomes and productivity.

But, seven years after the National Planning Commission, which was set up to develop a long-term vision and strategic plan, produced a diagnostic report that drew sharp attention to poor education outcomes, there has been little improvement, Manuel said.

“There are a series of proposals that respond to the core needs in basic education. These relate to the obvious needs such as infrastructure, the equalisation of resource allocation, expanding school nutrition programmes and improving the skills of teachers in maths, science and languages.”