The standard of teaching in many state schools is unacceptably poor. The PA undertakes to be courageous in dealing with all the factors that limit educational outcomes for our children and young people. According to many studies, South Africa’s education system is among the world’s worst, particularly in relation to maths and science, despite a large portion of the country’s taxes going to schools. Recent tests have even revealed that a worryingly large percentage of our young people struggle to read and write.

 

The creation higher and basic departments of education, each with their own ministry, has been a dismal failure and a perfect example of why our bloated government appears to grow its state machinery constantly, while its capacity to deliver seems to decline in proportion to its size. These departments must be combined again in order to ensure a single education system and plan from school to tertiary level, overseen by an administration that understands what is required from its investment in education in relation to the overall needs of the country.

 

The PA understands that a school or education body is largely only as effective as its senior management, particularly its headmaster/principal. Principals will thus be appointed with very limited union influence, unless this is in aid of efficiency and leadership/management qualities. Principals will have to meet set minimum criteria and specifications and be employed on strict performance contracts.

 

The PA would also expect that teachers be subjected to independently administered tests to determine if they are capable of doing their jobs and be sent on remediation courses if they are found wanting. If after an agreed period these teachers do not meet minimum requirements, they would have to either be sent back to university for more fundamental training or be reassigned to a job more suited to their skills or be fired until such time as they can prove their competence and be re-hired.

 

The PA believes that teacher salaries are far too low, but that the sector on its own has not done enough to warrant across-the-board increases for all teachers. Substantial increases in salary are necessary though, and these could be applied on a teacher-by-teacher basis, according to the results these teachers achieve with their pupils in standardised tests.

 

Such incentives could also be applied to principals and heads of department — in that as results improve, so do salaries. Measures would need to be put in place in order to prevent the abuse of such a system.

 

The PA would will develop programmes that identify talented individuals from every school who exhibit either above average intellectual or sporting ability. Such individuals (which exist in every social class, racial group and age range) are the people with the latent ability to innovate and solve the problems of South Africa in the future. They must be exposed to greater stimulation as they are paradoxically at higher risk of dropping out of school. Similarly, programmes need to be developed for those with lower abilities, so that they can also be granted the best chances in life.

 

The PA will develop, fund and support mentorship programmes in schools to allow pupils to form relationships with role models in various fields, in order to help them make the right career choices and succeed towards their goals in a systematic, step-by-step fashion. In this respect, the PA would also assign life coaches to each school, providing such individuals are able to produce results.

 

The PA would be willing to explore public-private partnerships in the education sector as affordable private schools have been found to produce good results. In many ways, private entities have been proven to be more efficient than government entities. Private enterprises either succeed and attract business or are wiped off the map. Government entities survive through government funding, whether they are successful or not. In this respect, private schools who do well can be subsidised by government, allowing them to either charge their pupils much less or nothing at all. A scale can be developed to regulate how such subsidies from government can be disbursed.

 

The PA would like to make education at tertiary level more affordable and even free for deserving students. There is a suggestion that if you study a scarce field, you can be aided financially in more ways than are currently happening. This means management studies, engineering, medicine, technology and so forth, but if you accept state assistance then you should not be allowed to emigrate with those scarce skills for an agreed-upon, but significant, space of time.