Cape Town - The torching of schools in Vuwani, Limpopo has placed the spotlight on the urgency to digitise school records. Records, including results and school-based assessments for matric pupils were reduced to ashes when more than 20 schools in the area were set alight this month.
At a press briefing before her education budget vote for the 2016/17 financial year, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said: “Within an environment that is not digitised, that is paper based - there is fire, there is no back-up. It’s gone.”
She said education officials and schools would have to work with quality assurance body Umalusi on what to do regarding the matric pupils’ marks. Motshekga also indicated there was no money in the current budget for the rebuilding of the schools. The department has been speaking to the Treasury for assistance.
“Despite the fact that the preliminary cost to reconstruct the schools completely gutted by fire, has been estimated at R720 million, the effects on children of Vuwani, arising from such wanton destruction of public assets, the infringement on their right to basic education, and the irreplaceable files and data destroyed at those gutted schools, cannot be quantified into rands and cents. It is simply devastating and unacceptable to the extreme.”
Motshekga said that, through Operation Phakisa, information and communications technology would be rolled out that would “develop and modernise” the skills of teachers and pupils “to match the needs of the changing world”.
She also indicated that mergers for small and rural schools were on the cards.
“In the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for 2016, we will improve support to rural and small schools after an intensified programme of rationalisation and mergers of unviable schools has been finalised in all provinces. The merging of schools is not an easy process and we anticipate we will come across challenges as these processes unfold, but we will deal with them as they arise as this is an absolute necessity if we hope to see real change in the form of quality education in these schools.”
The department has been allocated a budget of more than R22 billion for the MTEF (three year period). Motshekga said oversight visits to provinces would be scaled up.
“We are also mindful that all monitoring and oversight over financial and governance activities in the sector need to be strengthened, starting with more careful oversight of district level processes and outcomes, and much deeper support through our provincial and partner engagements.”
More than R6bn has been allocated to the National School Nutrition Programme for the 2016/17 financial year. More than 9 million pupils at 21 000 schools across the country benefit from this programme.
The Funza Lushaka bursary programme has been allocated more than R1bn for the financial year. “The Department has successfully placed 93 percent of Funza Lushaka graduates in our schools; thus exceeding the set target of at least 85 percent of these graduates.”
Motshekga also indicated that more than R38bn had been allocated to infrastructure delivery over the MTEF period.
Jessica Shelver, spokeswoman for Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, said many school records in the Western Cape were already digitised.
Cape Argus