MEC for education tables budget speech

The MEC for the Department of Education, Bonakele Majuba, tabled the department’s policy and budget speech 2021/22 on Tuesday at the provincial legislature.

In his speech he shared the department’s plans and the cost thereof.

“We are pressing ahead to equip our learners with multiple pathways to develop their full potential. This is crystalised in our priorities and it includes providing our grade 12 learners with tablets to enhance their learning experience. The tablets will be installed with study material, including electronic textbooks, for high enrolment subjects.

These tablets will help to complement teacher-learner classroom activities by providing virtual learning solutions. They will enable teachers to have some contact with learners virtually, continue content coverage outside the allocated teaching time and allow formative assessments and support. This will allow learners to work on tasks together in virtual study groups.

“This project is part of the department’s e-learning strategy to be unveiled against the backdrop of Youth Day at Mkhondo Local Municipality, which has a high enrolment of grade 12 learners.

R206 million has been set aside in this financial year to roll out this project.” In the current financial year, the department has set aside R777,3 million to provide nutritious meals to 920 110 learners for 199 days.

ALSO READ: Two dedicated Ehlanzeni TVET College students’ success stories inspire others

The MEC also shared how the pandemic has affected the department. “Covid-19 rammed and disorganised the schooling system, robbed the department of its valuable resources and put in abeyance a number of key educational projects. We lost 143 teachers, seven learners and 21 non-teaching staff.”

ALSO READ: Beauty queen celebrates birthday by guiding boys to be upstanding men

Majuba concluded by requesting the august house to approve the budget for the department, amounting to R22,3 billion, to advance all the programmes mentioned.