The national government might take over education in some areas
David Macfarlane and Nawaal Deane
The national government is seriously contemplating invoking powerful constitutional measures that will allow it for the first time to take over certain provincial government functions.
Minister of Education Kader Asmal last week expressed serious dissatisfaction with a number of provincial education departments. Speaking at a press conference in Cape Town, he presented a charge sheet that suggests some departments are failing in their core obligations.
Section 100 of the Constitution empowers the national government to assume responsibility for executive obligations when a province cannot or does not fulfil them. A milder option in the same section of the Constitution is for the national government to issue a directive to a province “describing the extent of the failure … and stating any steps required to meet its obligations”.
Asmal told the Mail & Guardian his comments last week were meant “to put the provinces on notice that if they don’t solve their own problems the national government will take action.
“But I would prefer that [these problems be addressed] by national’s closer monitoring of the provinces, rather than by our having to resort to section 100. I am committed to cooperative government and finding political solutions.”
The government has so far imposed section 100 only in the milder form and only four times, according to Ismail Momoniat, Deputy Director General of intergovernmental relations in the National Treasury.
The first two were in 1997: Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel imposed section 100 on the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal when they experienced serious financial problems. It was also imposed on the Free State about two years ago and currently applies to Mpumalanga.
“The provinces welcomed this move and it was successful. The Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal finances were turned around and the Free State is in a healthy state,” Momoniat told the M&G. “It is too early to assess its impact on Mpumalanga.”
Some provinces now stand accused of failing to implement national education policy and this at a time when the government is trying to drive the most drastic education revolution the country has ever seen.
Curriculum 2005 involves new school subjects (called learning areas), new content, and new teaching and learning methodologies.
Asmal would not be drawn on which provinces he might target. But the M&G understands that the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Province in particular can expect to have the whip cracked. Asmal’s recent report on the provinces to the president presents a blistering indictment of these three provinces; it even doubts the reliability of some of the information they supplied to the Ministry of Education for the purposes of the report.
The report Asmal’s fourth says “a work ethic … does not exist at the moment” in these provinces; but it also lashes other provinces for lack of delivery in certain areas.
It provides detailed statistics and analysis of six key areas in provincial education functioning. But in only two areas does Asmal report any improvement: the extent to which learners and teachers were actually present when schools opened in January, and the administration and results of the senior certificate (matric) examination last year.
Serious problems persist in four areas: learning support materials (especially textbooks); departmental capacities; discipline among employees; and farm schools.
The Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal had “still not managed the process of procuring and distributing learning support materials” five months into the school year.
Leadership in some departments has been weak to non-existent. The Eastern Cape and the Northern Province “have been changing Heads of Departments more than any other provincial departments”, the report says. The Eastern Cape has had six heads in as many years. This province has also been particularly slow in restructuring, as have Mpumalanga and the North West.
The Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Province pop up again under the spotlight of discipline. Other provinces supplied the education ministry with information on disciplinary cases in such a way as to enable the ministry to assess how quickly and adequately the cases were dealt with. But with these three “it has been difficult to assess the situation … largely because of the insufficiency of information [supplied]”.
Even so, it is clear that in the Eastern Cape “a large number of [disciplinary] cases have not been dealt with”. Some cases “are of a criminal nature and should have been reported to the police”. Charges against departmental personnel and teachers include arson, sodomy, sexual relationships with learners, misappropriation of school funds, alcohol abuse and assaults on learners and school staff.
Asmal last year instructed provinces to finalise by the end of the year all rental and other agreements between MECs and property owners (mainly farmers) on whose land schools are located. But nationwide only 30% of these agreements had been finalised by the beginning of this year a fact Asmal notes with “regret”.
The Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Province MECs for education failed to respond to the M&G’s faxed questions.