Submission to Parliament - Comments on How to Improve Basic Education

Equal Education recently made a submission to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Basic Education. The submission is titled: 'Comments on How to Improve Basic Education with respect to school infrastructure and school libraries'. It provides a good overview of the importance of decent infrastructure, the current backlogs and the regulatory roadblocks needing attention. To read more click below to view the original submission click here or download the submission.

Submission to Portfolio Committee on Basic Education – Comments on How to Improve Basic Education:

Contents

      Executive Summary                                                                                              

1. 1. Introduction        
   2. The link between school infrastructure and improved learner performance        
   3. The current state of school infrastructure – NEIMS Report 2009        
   4. The National Policy for an Equitable Provision of an Enabling School Physical Teaching and Learning Environment, and ‘National Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure.
      1. The draft National Policy   
      2. The draft Minimum Norms and Standards 
   5. Basic school infrastructure, looking at school libraries                                       
      1. The link between school libraries and improved learner performance   
      2. The status of school libraries in South Africa                                  

                                   3. What would it cost to implement a National Policy for the provision of school libraries in all our schools?                                                                                    

Key recommendations with regard to school infrastructure and school libraries              

Secondary Recommendations                                                                                            

Conclusion                                        

References            

Executive Summary

Equal Education (EE) is a movement of learners, parents, teachers and community members working for quality and equality in South African education, through research, analysis and activism. Our head office is in Khayelitsha, Western Cape. Since being founded in 2008, Equal Education has led initiatives aimed at the development of learning facilities; improved practice, content and access to teaching; the building of commitment and passion among teachers and learners; and improving the overall efficacy of South Africa’s education system, among other things. Our focus and attention is directed by the interests of our members, drawn largely from the working-class and poor. Some of our successful campaigns have resulted in the upgrade of school facilities, centred around the repair of 500 broken windows in a Khayelitsha school, and reducing the proportion of learners coming late in school across Cape Town. 

In 2009, EE began the Campaign for School Libraries. This campaign, the slogan of which is “1 School, 1 Library, 1 Librarian,” seeks to address the gross shortage of libraries in our public schools. The campaign speaks directly to the need for broad infrastructural improvement in public schools. The most recent government statistics reveal that there are still many schools in South Africa that are without, or have extremely poor, basic infrastructure.

This paper deals with the broad basic infrastructural needs and backlogs faced by many South African schools, which include the supply of water; sanitation; electricity; libraries; laboratories and computer centres. There still exists major inequality in access to basic resources in our schools. This is reflected in the disparate results between poor and privileged schools, with the latter performing better across the board. Based on sound research that demonstrates the positive link between improved access to resources and infrastructure and improved outcomes it is argued that the Department of Basic Education must adopt a national legal and policy framework against which the development of school infrastructure must be assessed. This must be addressed systematically through an equitable policy, in order for the backlogs to be adequately and efficiently dealt with, in view of the current inequalities. 

After dealing with the need to address problems in school infrastructure generally, particular focus is given to the lack of school libraries. The schools attended by the majority of Equal Education’s learner membership face a broad range of infrastructural problems, however it was particularly the issue of libraries which our members raised and committed themselves to addressing through the Campaign for School Libraries. The demands set by the EE Campaign for School Libraries are directly in line with the outcomes of local and international research, which demonstrates a clear link between the provision of school libraries and improved learner performance. EE has conducted a study producing a costing estimate for the provision of functional libraries in all South African public schools. The findings of this study will also be dealt with in brief below; however the full research document is annexed hereto.

THE NEED TO IMPROVE SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE

1 Introduction

There is sufficient international, regional and local research to demonstrate the causal connection between the level of resources and infrastructure that a school has, and its learner outcomes. The research may not assume that improved resources alone will translate into higher learner achievement, however the evidence strongly suggests that infrastructure plays a significant role. This element of the education system has a particular bearing in post 1994 South Africa, which inherited a system, historically based on targeted disproportional input (according to race classification), which generated vast disparities between former white schools and black schools. Inequality in learner performance between schools in South Africa is still vast and much higher than other countries in the Southern African region. Studies show that, despite large increases in the provision of resources to historically black schools, former white and Indian schools still perform far better than historically black and so-called coloured schools in South Africa.[1]

In part, it is within a historical context of apartheid that the current crisis in South African education system must be understood. However, it has been 16 years since the political transition with little significant progress having been made with respect to the inequalities that exist between our schools in terms of infrastructure and learner performance – which often mirrors these differences. The most recent report on school infrastructure shows major backlogs in the provision of basic resources for schools, including water, sanitation, electricity, libraries, laboratories and computer centers (amongst other things).

Table 1: Literacy in the Western Cape.

Percentage of grade 6 learners literate at the standard level of grade 6.

Source: WCED

The table above shows the poor state of literacy in the Western Cape, where, most recently 44,8% (less than half) of the province’s grade 6 learners were literate at the standard grade 6 level. But what the table also shows is the enormous inequality between well-resourced former model-C schools, and poorly resourced township schools. In 2003, only 3,7% of grade 6 learners in ‘black’ township schools were literate at the required level. More than one third of these same grade 6 learners did not even have a grade 3 level of literacy.

The absence of resources is particularly acute in the case of functional school libraries, enjoyed by only 8% of public schools. Nevertheless, the government has to date failed to adopt a national policy on school libraries, nor to finalise proposed regulations aimed at addressing the backlogs and inequality in access to school infrastructure, the absence of which severely hampers any progress.

In order to address the school infrastructure backlog, three main steps need to be employed by the Department of Basic Education namely; continually tracking and quantifying the backlog; developing a national policy and legislative framework – including planning, prioritising and establishing benchmarks against which progress can be measured; and lastly an effective and accountable implementation plan.

The need for improvement in school infrastructure has not been entirely ignored by the government. In a number of instances the government has expressly recognised this concern and has consistently increased its budget allocation for this purpose. However, by failing to make use of backlog tracking mechanisms to develop clear policies, a legal framework and effective implementation plan, it is failing the majority of our learners.

2 The link between school infrastructure and improved learner performance

There is a significant body of research that demonstrates a clear link between improvements in school infrastructure and higher learner performance. Recent studies conducted using research data from SACMEQ II[2] (the second major educational policy report using data collected in 14 sub-Saharan African countries) demonstrate that ‘in schools with access to more physical resources – such as libraries, administration offices, playgrounds, electricity, running water and equipment that is ubiquitous in schools in developed countries – students achieve at higher levels.’[3]

Using the same data, Van der Berg employs a hierarchical linear model to assess the

relationship between reading and mathematic scores on the one hand, and socio-economic status of schools and the learners on the other, to trace a link between these and higher learner achievement. He found that “…mean school SES [socio-economic status] affected the intercept positively i.e. that richer schools performed better, ceteris paribus.” Van der Berg’s study shows that although raising the SES of a learner will produce higher achievement levels, the SES of a school has a far greater impact in yielding higher results. Thus, “[i]n poor schools, not even high individual SES scores could generate a good reading score, as performance was weak throughout the spectrum, [while] even those few children with low SES in rich schools performed better than similar individuals in poor or average schools.”[4]

Gustafsson, in his analysis of data of the first SACMEQ report, also highlights this correlation stating that “…[b]etter school infrastructure…is strongly associated with better learner performance. Even if we use the more conservative slope coefficients from the mathematics models, the simulation indicates that raising the quality of school infrastructure in all HD [historically disadvantaged] schools to that of the average HA [historically advantaged] school would improve the scores by around 14 per cent in the HD schools.”[5]

The significance of this correlation between school infrastructure and learner performance becomes even more crucial when one considers the historically inherited inequalities in South Africa’s education system, which are exceedingly high compared to all other countries included in the SACMEQ II report. “South Africa has by far the highest recorded values.”[6] It is here that the research findings make their most pertinent assertions. Poor (former) black and coloured schools still perform the worst; however it is shown that the disparity in performance between rich and poor schools disproportionately exceeds the disparity in socio-economic status between the learners. This can only be put down to inequality between the schools themselves. As Gustafsson notes:

…the inter-school inequalities, relative to overall inequalities, are greater with regard to performance than they are with regard to socio-economic status [and] it is important for this to be the other way round. Schools should have an equalising effect on society...[7] 

Nick Taylor picks up on the point made by Gustafsson and notes that: 

…instead of ameliorating the inequalities in South African society by providing poor children with the knowledge and skills needed to escape poverty and contribute to national development, the majority of schools, at best, have no equalising effect; at worst they may even be further disadvantaging their pupils.[8]

The direct link between improved school physical infrastructure and higher learner performance must be considered in light of the inequalities - in access to basic resources, between South African schools. This means that the current system is not adequately addressing this problem and may in fact be perpetuating it. With the continued drop in matric pass rates since 2003, from 73.3% to 60.6%, all factors found to impact on learner performance, including the equitable provision of resources and school infrastructure, must be urgently and systematically provided if this crisis is to be dealt with. 

We now turn to the current state of affairs in terms of basic physical school infrastructure.

3 The current state of school infrastructure – NEIMS Report 2009

The most recent government report on school infrastructure in South Africa, the National

Education Infrastructure Management Systems [NEIMS] Report 2009[9] details the continuing crisis that many schools in our country face. The report deals with the provision of electricity; water; sanitation; libraries; laboratories; computer centres and sports facilities. (Interestingly, the Report does not deal with actual school buildings). This report provides the details of what is still required in order to ensure that school environments are conducive to achieving an improvement in learning outcomes.

According to the NEIMS Report, 2009, of the 24 460 public ordinary schools:

• 3 600 have no electricity supply, while a further 800 had an unreliable electricity supply (the largest number of these schools being in the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal);

• 2 444 have no water supply, while a further 2563 have an unreliable water supply (the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal being the worst provinces);

•  only 7 847 have municipal flush toilets, while 970 still do not have any ablution facilities and 11 231 still use pit-latrine toilets;

•  only 8% have stocked and functioning libraries;[10]

•  only 10% have stocked computer centers; and

•  only 5% have stocked laboratories.

This report is not the first of its kind. Since 1996 the Department of Education began tracking and documenting the shortcomings in school infrastructure through the School Register of Needs (SRN), which was updated in 2000, 2006, and most recently in the NEIMS Report published in 2009. The need, firstly to track and document these shortcomings is critical in any attempt to address problems in school infrastructure and it was as a result of such tracking that the government consistently and substantially increased budget allocations for school infrastructure since 1996.[11]

4 The ‘National Policy for an Equitable Provision of an Enabling School Physical Teaching and Learning Environment’ and ‘National Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure.’

Despite vast increases in budget allocations for school infrastructure over the last 14 years, and some progress in addressing these challenges, there still remains a critical backlog as is evident in the 2009 NEIMS Report. By its own admission, the progress made by the Department of Education has been “inadequate and uneven”[12] and has come about without a clear policy framework. This seems to be the basis for the development of the National Policy for an Equitable Provision on an Enabling School Physical Teaching and Learning Environment (hereafter referred to as the ‘National Policy’), and the National Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure (hereafter referred to as ‘Minimum Norms and Standards’). The Department of Education drafted and tabled the National Policy and the Minimum Norms and Standards, in November 2008, both of which were tabled in the Government Gazette, No. 31616, Notice 1438 and Notice 1439 (respectively) of 2008. These documents were tabled with a call for public comment.

The documents are a crucial step towards the development of a clear national strategy to address the school infrastructure backlogs, and will be quoted from extensively below – firstly, because of certain unequivocal admissions regarding physical school infrastructure contained therein and, secondly (and more significantly) because both remain in draft form, are yet to be adopted, and remain without any force or effect, despite specific deadlines set out in both documents which have already lapsed.

4.1 The draft National Policy

This National Policy was drafted after consultation with the Council of Education Ministers in terms of s 3(4) of the National Education Policy Act, 27 of 1996. In its Executive Summary, this draft policy document gives clear recognition to the link between “the physical environment learners are taught [sic], and teaching and learning effectiveness, as well as student learning outcomes.”[13] It then goes on to provide a detailed description of the detrimental effects of a poor physical learning environment and the positive implications of a good physical learning environment, all of which is based on ‘recent studies.’ The draft National Policy also notes the current deplorable school infrastructural landscape and lack of efficient progress in addressing this:

Inadequacies are stark in some aspects like the provision of school libraries where nearly 80 percent of schools are still without science laboratories, lack of computers for teaching and learning in 68 percent of our schools, and inadequate classrooms leading to overcrowding in nearly a quarter of our schools.[14]

Furthermore, the draft National Policy correctly highlights that without a clear policy

framework there is a clear risk that:

…more resources may be invested without a clear definition of what constitutes an enabling physical teaching and learning environment in South Africa’s schools of the future, without clear benchmarking of progress toward the attainment of that environment, and without clear monitoring of the impact of that environment on the attainment of our core sector policy targets and outcomes.[15]

EE would add that any failure to act on this recognition would be an affront to the rights of South African school learners to equality, human dignity and to have access to basic education.

In line with the recognition of the link between the physical learning environment and effective teaching and learning, as well the need for a clear policy framework to guide the progressive attainment of conducive learning and teaching environments, the draft National Policy then goes on to identify ‘6 strategic and 2 operational’ policy statements aimed at giving effect to this recognition. The first of these states the need for nationally established norms and standards for an enabling environment. These draft Minimum Norms and Standards were published for public comment in the same Government Gazette general Notice, on 21 November 2008. These draft Minimum Norms and Standards are analysed in 1.4.2 below.

More importantly, the National Policy provides that:

Effectively from 2008, norms and standards for the physical teaching and learning environment will be set at the national level by the Department of Education. National Norms and Standards will [sic] set and express in terms of minimum and optimum provision. Along this continuum, norms and standards for school safety, functionality, effectiveness and enrichment will be explicitly defined at a national level by the Department of Education. The DoE will also set clear target dates by which a set proportion of schools will meet each level of enablement in its environment. The DoE will also set a clear date by which all South African schools will meet norms and standards for effectiveness.

National norms and standards will be developed during 2008, and fully adopted by the end of 2009.

Effective from January 2010, all provinces will have aligned their provision programs to national norms and standards and set targets.[16]

According to our research, the tabling of these documents in the Government Gazette is the last official public communication by the Department of Education (or of Basic Education) on this matter. This is a matter of concern given the need and significance of this policy and the norms and standards.

It is conceded that since the end of 2008, when these documents were gazetted, there has been a change in national education administration, the appointment of a new Minister, and the establishment of a new Ministry dedicated specifically to Basic Education (as distinct from the Department and Ministry dealing with Higher Education and Training). This does not however detract from the need and importance of these documents or the urgency of the situation.

There appears to have been no official public announcement relating to the status of these documents by the Department of Basic Education. There has not even been mention that these deadlines and targets may have to be shifted. It is then only left to assume, in light of silence on the part of the Department of Basic Education in this regard, that there has not been any amendment of the specific dates and timelines set in the draft National Policy and the Minimum Norms and Standards.

Furthermore, the current Minister of Basic Education, Minister Angie Motshekga, has recently made specific reference to the draft Minimum Norms and Standards. In response to an Internal Question Paper 12-2009, Question 1418, on the 25 September 2009, the Minister is quoted as saying that “[n]orms and standards for physical infrastructure approved by the Council of Education Ministers and the Heads of Education Committee in 2008…. are awaiting the concurrence of the Minister of Finance for finalisation.”[17]

It is assumed, in light of this statement, that the Minimum Norms and Standards referred to by Minister Motshekga above are those tabled in the Government Gazette, notice 1439 of 2008, by the previous Minister of Education, Minister Naledi Pandor. It would also appear that there have not been any amendments made to those Minimum Norms and Standards. If this is indeed the case, then the deadlines for implementation would already have lapsed and the Minister should provide an update as to the status of these norms, and an explanation as to why the deadlines were not met.

4.2 The draft Minimum Norms and Standards

The National Policy “identifies the development of norms and standards as well as the Basic Minimum Package (BMP) for the provision of school infrastructure as a first priority issue.”[18] This forms the policy framework in which these norms and standards have been drafted. Moreover, s5A of the South African Schools Act, 84 of 1996, also makes provision for the Minister of Basic Education to regulate minimum uniform norms and standards for school infrastructure. It is in terms of this provision specifically that the Minimum Norms and Standards are drafted.

Thus, even before the National Policy had been developed, the Minister of Basic Education was provided with the scope and authority to draft minimum norms and standards for school infrastructure which would, in terms of s5A(b), have to include provision for water, electricity, sanitation and school libraries amongst other things. These areas are covered in the draft Minimum Norms and Standards which remain without any force or effect.

It is stated in the draft Minimum Norms and Standards that “[t]hese norms and standards will be fully adopted by the end of 2009 and will be implemented in a phased manner starting from 2010.”[19] As is the case with the National Policy, this document remains a draft, despite the deadlines for adoption and implementation already having lapsed. There has also been no public official communication from the Department of Basic Education regarding the status of this draft.

It is submitted that the Minister of Basic Education must publicly pronounce on the status of the Minimum Norms and Standards and provide reasons as to the delay in adopting them. As is the case with the National Policy, this must be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

5 Basic infrastructure, looking specifically at school libraries

One of the critical areas related to school infrastructure that is directly related to improving learner outcomes is that of school libraries. School libraries are referred to in the draft National Policy, and draft minimum norms and standards (above).

Official surveys (mentioned above) have revealed that South Africa’s learner outcomes rank poorly on the international stage, not only compared with learners from developed countries, but even among those from less-developed parts of sub-Saharan Africa. At the root of this problem lies the issue of illiteracy which, Equal Education argues, can be combated, to a significant but not complete extent, by ensuring that every public ordinary school has a stocked library serviced by a qualified full-time librarian.

5.1 School libraries and student performance

Major international studies have determined that, all other things being equal, the provision of a functional school library (stocked, staffed and fully funded) will add between 10% and 25% to average learner outcomes.[20] In assessments and studies conducted in 2000 and 2001, in Massachusetts and Texas, it was found that ‘the highest achieving students [were those who] attended schools with good libraries.[21]

Local research has determined a strong correlation and causal relationship between the

presence of a staffed library and higher academic performance. Bhorat and Oosthuizen state that “…the presence of school libraries [is] associated with higher performance ...[T]he mean pass rate for schools without a library…is 47% compared with 66% for those with a library,” which applies consistently to schools across the spectrum.[22] It is generally accepted that the presence of stocked school libraries and qualified school librarians improves the average performance of learners at all levels of schooling. This shows that the provision of a school library cannot be considered a luxury, rather than a necessity. Nevertheless the current state of school libraries in South Africa is dismal.

5.2 The state of school libraries in South Africa

It is common knowledge that the current education system in South Africa suffers many of its setbacks as a result of our inherited past under apartheid. Many of the backlogs in, inter alia, school infrastructure have arisen as a direct result of the policy of Bantu education designed to suppress the educational development of the majority of learners in the country. This changed under the political transition in 1994, which provided the impetus to re-align our education policies.

The Department of Education, in its attempt to reverse the adverse effects of Bantu education, set out to introduce a number of changes to the system, which included the introduction of outcomes based education (under Curriculum 2005). This new curriculum in fact placed a greater burden on teachers and learners – particularly because of its emphasis on research based learning, which in turn demanded greater access to resources. It could be expected that recognising the demands of the new curriculum would entail a shift in focus to the provision of important enabling resources, like libraries. In fact the department of education gave recognition to this demand. In 2006, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor stressed the need for these resources in schools:

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the high schools with the worst results are surrounded by primary schools that do not have the resources to teach effectively. It is important to stress that resources does not refer to money; it may refer to teacher competence, to an adequate or absence of a library.[23]

In light of the recent moves by Minister Motshekga to reduce some of the burdens and inefficiencies of OBE, it might be assumed that the need for libraries has decreased, but that would be a false assumption. The fundamental role of a school library is to ensure that learners develop strong literacy skills. To do this, learners particularly in primary school, need access to a multitude of books which they can read for pleasure. It must be borne in mind that the majority of young people do not grow up in homes with books, nor in neighbourhoods with bookshops or public libraries. Whilst public libraries do ameliorate the situation to some extent they are not integrated with the school curriculum, cannot become part of the culture of a school, are often a far distance from where learners live, and are often completely overcrowded by learners to the extent that the general public is excluded.

Yet, despite this the current state of affairs shows that no significant progress has been made in terms of the provision of school libraries. Only 8% of public ordinary schools in South Africa have functional libraries.[24] These are almost entirely situated in former Model-C schools which are able to stock and staff these facilities through their own resources. A history of inequality, rooted in apartheid and Bantu education, underlies these unacceptable conditions that the government has to a large extent inherited, but these figures are a representation of statistics 15 years after the transition to democracy and reflect a lack of policy aimed at remedying the injustices of the past.

The Department of Education has recognized the importance of libraries, but since 1997 six consecutive drafts for a national policy on school libraries have fallen short of adoption and implementation. Without a National Policy to deal with this backlog, it is no wonder that there has not been much progress in the last 15 years. Nick Taylor aptly states that:

Where learning gains are recorded, they are associated with programmes with a clear focus on specific behaviour, such as the improvement of reading, effected through relatively intense interventions in the form of teacher training and accompanied by sufficient materials to make up for the often poor supply available in disadvantaged schools. Particularly instructive here is the finding ... that a programme which promoted reading and writing in all high school subjects had a marked effect on results achieved in the matric exams.[25]

As demonstrated above, the Department of Education has put together an impressive draft legal and policy framework within which to implement a plan to deal with the shortage of physical school resources and infrastructure. In view of the Department of Education’s failure to finalise these regulations, and to develop and implement a policy to deal specifically with the backlog of school libraries, Equal Education’s Policy, Communications and Research department conducted independent research to provide a paper that, inter alia, estimates the cost of implementing such a policy. The findings of this paper, titled “We can’t afford not to,” are briefly summarised below. The full document is annexed to this submission.