Rebuilding the basic education system post-COVID-19

Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, says there is an urgent need to renew the current basic education accord on turning schools into centres of excellence.

Motshekga said that the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign (QLTC) has one overriding mission – to bring into reality the delivery of quality learning and teaching.

The Minister was giving an opening address at the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign Inter-Provincial Workshop at Birchwood Hotel in Johannesburg.

“We must use this workshop as an opportunity to meaningfully contribute to the building of coherent responses on the envisaged measures to reboot and rebuild the basic education system post-COVID-19,” Motshekga said.

The Minister further applauded the QLTC for being hands-on in terms of strengthening quality learning and teaching during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign (QLTC) is a collaborative effort between and among the political parties, Department of Basic Education, teacher unions, and Association of School Governing Bodies.

The theme of the three-day workshop is “Repositioning the QLTC to mobilise all stakeholders and strengthen partnerships to build a national social compact for education!”

Minister Motshekga said the workshop’s objectives are to reposition, strengthen, advance, redirect, review, and re-evaluate the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign (QLTC) work.

Among other things, the QLTC structures must do oversight, such as monitor the basic functionality of schools under their tutelage.

The oversight work is anchored in the following pillars among others:

• Code of conduct for teachers, learners and support staff,
• Procedures and mechanisms of attending to learners’ absenteeism, teachers and support staff.
• Teacher Development roll-out plan.

Having recently convened Basic Education Sector Lekgotla, Motshekga said she called for a new post-COVID-19 basic education social compact.

“I am glad that finally, we have this opportunity to lay the foundations for a national social compact for basic education,” she said.

Basic Education a societal issue

Minister Motshekga said that parents are the vital cog in the wheel of basic education, while learners are the heartbeat of the basic education ecosystem.

“Sadly, we lag behind our peers in parents’ participation in children’s schooling, especially in historically disadvantaged communities,” she said.

Motshekga said there is a need for a new set of non-negotiables for teachers, parents and community leaders which forms the backbone of a new basic education social compact the sector seeks to build.