Speech by Minister of Basic Education, Ms. Siviwe Gwarube: Release of the Diagnostic Reports

Deputy Minister, Dr Mhaule
Director-General, Mr Mweli
Esteemed guests,
Members of the media,
Colleagues, 
Good Morning.

Today, we reflect on the latest results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the Southern and East Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SEACMEQ) assessment and, for the first time, the South African Systematic Evaluation (SASE). These results are an essential barometer of the state of education in South Africa, allowing us to benchmark our progress, identify areas requiring urgent and targeted support, and ultimately improve the quality of education outcomes.

In a South African first, today marks the first time we consider TIMSS, SEACMEQ and the South African System Evaluation results together, while also taking stock of factors contributingto learner performance in our country. By publishing these results alongside the Department's diagnostic report, we invite all key stakeholders in the basic education sector to carefully consider these findings as we chart a course towards improving education outcomes for all learners..

Today's results clearly illustrate the challenges facing our education systembut also present an opportunity to breathe new life into our delivery of quality education through a suite of solutions that will drive meaningful change across our education system.

More of the same will not do, and today, armed with not only these results but a deep diagnostic analysis of what drives learner performance, I want to take this opportunity to set out a plan for progressively improving the quality of education outcomes in the sector.

A Mixed Picture

The results reveal both areas of progress and persistent challenges. On the positive side, our Grade 9 learners have demonstrated incremental improvements in Mathematics and Science, with performance levels rising slightly compared to previous cycles. This reflects the dedication of our educators and learners, as well as the impact of targeted interventions in certain provinces.

However, the results also highlightsignificant disparities.

Learners in Quintile 1 to 3 schools, representing the most economically disadvantaged communities, consistently perform worse than those in Quintile 4 and 5 schools.

These learners lag behind in Mathematics and Science due to systemic challenges, including inadequate infrastructure, limited access to learning materials, and uneven teacher development opportunities.

In contrast, Quintile 4 and 5 schools benefit from better-equipped classrooms, a higher concentration of experienced educators, and more robust parental and community support. These disparities highlightthe urgent need for targeted interventions to bridge the performance gap and ensure equitable educational outcomes across the system. 
Furthermore, the gap between learners receiving instruction in their mother tongue and those taught in a second language remains stark. This linguistic divide hampers comprehension and academic achievement, particularly in foundational subjects like Mathematics and Science.

Critical Issues Identified

Ladies and Gentlemen,

From these findings, three critical challenges demand our immediate attention:

A.    Foundational Learning Deficits:
A diagnosis of our learner performance shows that too many learners progress 
through the education system without mastering foundational skills, particularly in Mathematics and Science. These deficits accumulate over time, limiting learners' ability to succeed in higher grades and diminishing their prospects of accessing further education and employment opportunities.

B.    Language of Learning and Teaching:
The mismatch between learners' home language and the language of instruction continues to be a significant barrier. Learners taught in a second language struggle with comprehension, adversely affecting their academic performance across all subjects.

C.    Inequitable Resource Allocation:
Schools in marginalised communities often lack the infrastructure, teaching materials, and teacher development programmes needed to deliver quality education. This perpetuates cycles of poverty and inequality, denying millions of learners the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Proposed Interventions

In response to these findings, I have worked with the Department to implement targeted interventions to address these systemic challenges. 

These efforts are aimed at improving virrent performance, defining a long-term vision for the sector, and ensuring that short-term actions are complemented by sustained planning and investment.

Do we have our work cut out for us? Yes. But we cannot allow ourselves to become paralysed the daunting task that lies ahead of us.

The interventions we announce today will set us on a pathway to improved education outcomes for our children. 
Allow me to outline some of these interventions:

•    Improving access to quality Early Childhood Development: A Foundation for Success

The evidence is clear: early learning is critical to long-term academic success. To address foundational learning deficits, we are intensifying efforts to expand access to quality Early Childhood Development programmes.. While this is a resource-intensive exercise, it is necessary to set up our children for a successful schooling career.

As such, the Department is undertaking a mass registration drive to formalise ECD programmes, aligned with the National Curriculum Framework for ECD and supported by newly developed learning and teaching support materials.

These materials will ensure that every child, whether in Constantia, Sandton or in, Motherwell or Mqanduli, can engage meaningfully with early learning content.

We are also prioritising the professional development of ECD practitioners. By providing professional development opportunities to our existing ECD practitioners and equipping them with the necessary skills and resources, we will transform ECD facilities into nurturing environments that meaningfully stimulate cognitive, emotional, and social development in young learners.

•    Promoting Mother-Tongue Bilingual-based Education (MTBbE): Unlocking potential
Language is a powerful enabler of learning. The results have clearly shown that learners whose home language differs from the language of learning and teaching at school are significantly outperformed by learners taught in their home languages.

The Constitution provides everyone with the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public institutions where that education is reasonably practicable. This right needs to be progressively but equitably realised in line with the available resources.

Recognising this, the Department is currently rolling out a Mother-Tongue Bilingual-based Education (MTBBE) programme to support Provincial Education Departments in assisting public schools in expanding access to mother-tongue education as and where the need arises.

This programme aims to allow learners to access Mathematics, Science and Technology instruction in their home language alongside English. In doing this, we empower learners to excel in these critical subjects by bridging the gap between comprehension and application.

To support this programme, we are prioritising the training of educators in bilingual teaching methods, ensuring the availability of quality bilingual learning and teaching support materials and exploring the possibility of a bilingual national assessment.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me be clear: rolling out mother tongue education will not solve all our challenges overnight.

However, it will contribute to improving learning outcomes and foster a deeper appreciation of South Africa's rich linguistic and diverse cultural heritage.

Achieving this aim will require significant resources and investment and, within the constrained fiscal environment the country curently faces. It will need to be rolled out progressively within our existing means and where it is most required. I will be working closely with my colleagues across all provinces to find workable ways to expand access to quality mother tongue education.

In addition to these steps, I intend in the next financial year to ensure that the national norms and standards for language policy are reviewed and, where necessary, updated to ensure that they assist School Governing Bodies in promoting mother tongue education at a school level in meaningfully way that will benefit our learners.

•    Driving Efficiency and Return on Investment in Education

South Africa invests heavily in education, with the sector accounting for a significant portion of the national budget. However, the results shared with you today highlight the need to ensure that this investment yields tangible outcomes and a good Return on Investment for those who matter most, the citizens of this country.
To maximise the return on investment, the basic education sector must improve learning outcomes in the Foundation Phase.

Working with my Department, we have identified several steps to help drive up literacy and numeracy at the start of our children's schooling careers.

This will ensure that more learners will be equipped with the skills and competencies to progress through our schooling system successfully and ultimately access higher education and employment opportunities. I am therefore pleased to make the following announcements:

•    Teacher Development for the Foundation Phase:

Firstly, I have instructed my Department to ensure that the Funza Lushaka Bursary Scheme prioritises students who want to pursue a teaching career in the Foundation Phase, and that our teacher development plans are appropriately guided by our strategic focus on improving literacy and numeracy in the Foundation Phase.

•    Post Provisioning for the Foundation Phase:

Secondly, the Department will ensure that the Post Provisioning Norms are reviewed as a matter of urgency. These norms determine the distribution of educator posts to public schools, which account for over 80% of the budget allocated to our Provincial Education Departments.

Unlike most other education policies, the Post Provisioning Norms have not been updated in over 20 years. Our education landscape and priorities have changed during this time. Therefore, we must take steps to ensure that these Norms account for our drive to achieve quality universal access to Grade R and our focus on improving reading and calculating in the Foundation Phase.

The Post Provisioning Norms, in their current form, favour high schools that offer large numbers of subjects in Grades 10, 11, and 12. The consequences are massive inefficiencies and large Foundation Phase classes, which should essentially be under 30 to effectively teach reading.

Therefore, my Department will develop an updated set of Post Provisioning Norms underpinned by research for the sector's consideration.

Through this process, we hope to ensure that the Post Provisioning Norms will better support our efforts to improve learning outcomes in the Foundation Phase, provide for a more efficient distribution of educator posts and assist provinces in mitigating the impact of budget reductions.

•    Strengthening Curriculum Delivery in the Foundation Phase:

In addition to these critical steps, I am pleased to announce that the Department is prioritising updates to the National Catalogue of Learning and Teaching Support Materials for the Foundation Phase.

This National Catalogue is developed and must be rigorously evaluated and updated periodically by the Department with education experts to ensure that learners across South Africa receive equitable access to high-quality, up-to-date, age-appropriate learning materials. This is critical for supporting the delivery of the curriculum.

This is an important step, as it ensures that our Provincial Education Departments and public schools can purchase textbooks, learning materials and equipment from a comprehensive, educationally sound and linguistically inclusive list that has been specifically approved to achieve national curriculum standards in the Foundation Phase.

•    Protecting Teaching and Learning Time:
From the results that have been released today, we can see that Quintile 1 schools experienced higher levels of teacher and learner absenteeism than schools in other Quintiles. The Eastern Cape, Free State and Mpumalanga provinces reported higher learner and teacher absenteeism levels than the other provinces. The Free State, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga experienced lower levels of teacher attendance at schools than other provinces. Where as in provinces like Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and Northern Cape  had more moderate levels of absenteeism.  

These results demonstrate a correlation between teacher absenteeism and poor academic outcomes in schools.

It is therefore absolutely crucial that we protect teaching time and that teachers are at school and teaching for the entire day, for 230 days per year, to ensure adequate coverage of the curriculum.

To do this, I am calling on all Provincial Education Departments, all MECs, all education districts,  all circuit teams, all school principals, all School Management Teams and all School Governing Bodies, to ensure that they urgently work together to ensure that our schools have their five Ts in order: 
•    Time on task: Teaching and learning time cannot be disrupted by activities that do not contribute to learning. This means ensuring that teaching and learning time is not interrupted by social events, fund-raising events, and visits that do not contribute to learning.  
•    Teacher preparedness and knowledge: Our teachers need to be well-prepared to ensure that the curriculum is adequately covered in class. This includes ensuring that our teachers have access to professional development opportunities and are not overly burdened with administrative tasks unrelated to their core teaching business.
•    Textbooks: We need to ensure that all of our schools have the textbooks and necessary materials required to ensure that quality teaching and learning take place. These need to be provided to schools timeously.
•    Technology: We need to ensure equitable access to technology interventions that support the teaching and learning process.
•    Testing: We need to ensure that our schools are correctly assessing our learners, testing whether they have mastered core concepts and competencies and then targeting support to learners.

Prioritising our Core Mandate
Colleagues,

In the context of constrained resources, it is imperative that we focus on core priorities that directly impact learner outcomes. While extracurricular programmes and enrichment activities have their place, we must ensure that every initiative aligns with our primary mandate: delivering quality education that prepares learners for meaningful participation in society in which they are able to contribute to the economy.

A focused and disciplined approach will enable us to channel resources where most needed, ensuring no learner is left behind.

Protecting and Optimising the Education Budget

The education budget is not just an expenditure item — it is an investment in the future of our nation. As we face ongoing fiscal pressures, we must advocate for protecting education funding.

The best way to illustrate that we deserve our allocations is to ensure the efficient use of our budgets.

Beyond improving matric results, our funding must drive system-wide improvements from early learning to secondary education. By addressing disparities and fostering equity, we can build an education system that is both inclusive and competitive on the global stage.

Call to Action

These results are holding up a mirror for us as a country to take a long hard look at ourselves and come face to face with the cold hard truth that our educational outcomes are deeply uneven. Despite post-apartheid reforms aimed at redressing our inequalities, the education system still remains highly unequal, with well-resourced schools outperforming poorly resourced schools in marginalised areas.

As part of efforts to ensure that our schooling system is a just and fair one, I plan to request the soon-to-be-operationalised National Education and Training Council to advise me on how we can improve the way in which the curriculum is delivered.With a specific focus on public schools in Quintiles 1 to3, and how we can improve the funding model for public schooling. The call for nominations of members to serve on this advisory body has been made and has been extended until the end of January 2025.

I will thereafter appoint members to the Council so they may commence work on these critical projects.

The TIMSS, SEACMEQ and SASE results are a clarion call for all stakeholders —government, educators, parents, civil society, and the private sector — to rally together in support of our learners. Education is not just the responsibility of the Department; it is a societal mission that requires our collective effort and our unwavering commitment.

Conclusion
As we digest these findings, let us not look for easy solutions, quick fixes or scapegoats to sacrifice at the altar of expediency.

Education is a massive and complex societal undertaking and one of the most important undertakings for any civilisation. We can be defeatists and throw in the towel now, citing the enormity and complexity of achieving quality education for all, or we can focus on the opportunities that this moment presents us.

Now, we have a baseline of where we are. We know what contributes to learner performance. We must now use this firm foundation as a springboard to transform our education system into a beacon of excellence, equity, quality, and opportunity for every child in South Africa.

To do so we must: 
•    Ruthlessly prioritise where we invest our limited budget,
•    Focus only on our core mandate, 
•    Prioritise early childhood development,
•    Focus on improving learning outcomes in the Foundation Phase, and
•    Protect Teaching and Learning time,
•    And to this we must be committed and unrelenting!

Let us never forget that the education of every child in South Africa is not just a duty but a moral imperative, but a commitment to unlocking their potential and shaping a future where equality, opportunity, and prosperity are within reach for all.

Thank You!

#GovZAupdates  #Servicedeliveryza