Jacob Zuma has hailed the matric pass rate as a “significant improvement”. But is the education system “on the right track”? As we discovered, matric results are not a reliable barometer of education quality.
For the fifth year in a row, South Africa’s education authorities have announced dramatic improvements in the matric pass rate.
“[W]e are sending a strong message that basic education under the new administration has the capacity to improve the quality of education in South Africa,” Angie Motshekga, the Minister of Basic Education, said this week as she made the announcement.
“[T]his is the best matric class since 1994,” South African president Jacob Zuma enthused. “We are…pleased to note this consistently upward trend in the matric results, with the pass rate going from 62.6% in 2008, dipping to 60.6% in 2009, only to rise to 67.8% in 2010, 70.2% in 2011 and 73.9% in 2012.” (Note: It hasn’t been entirely consistent. As Zuma himself pointed out, the pass rate fell by two percent in 2009)
A ‘massive fraud’
South African children attend school on March 13, 2009 under a tree in the Eastern Cape village of Libode. Others have been far less complimentary.
In a scathing opinion piece, Jonathan Jansen, the vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State and a prominent commentator on education, wrote that the country’s education system was a “massive fraud”.
Government “wrongly, but conveniently” used the matric results as “a barometer of the state of the school system” when all other data “reveal we have been stagnating, or doing worse”, Jansen argued.
The opposition Democratic Alliance has called on Motshekga to “institute a full-scale independent audit of the 2013 results”, citing concerns over the quality of the markers, the process of moderation and the high dropout rate.
‘On the right track’
While conceding that there is “still a lot of work that needs to be done”, Motshekga remains adamant that education in South Africa is on the “right track”.
Addressing a business briefing hosted by The New Age newspaper yesterday, Motshekga said that the pass rate – which has improved from 60.9% in 2009 to 78.2% in 2013 – is “an indication that indeed the system is on the right track”.
She also claimed that “[t]here is overwhelming evidence that we are improving learner performance”.
Is the system really on the right path? And has the quality of education in South Africa improved along with the pass rate?
Minister contradicted by her own department
South African Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga with President Jacob Zuma at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. For starters, Motshekga’s claim that the increase in the pass rate “is an indication that indeed the system is on the right track” is contradicted by her own department.
The department of basic education states on its website that “[c]ontrary to popular belief, the matric pass rate on its own is not a good measure of academic achievement in the schooling system, nor was the pass rate ever designed for this”. Rather, the pass rate serves as a “measure of the opportunities open to our youths”.
It goes on to add: “Comparing pass rates in different years is in fact not like comparing apples to apples… Examinations like our matric are simply not designed to compare the performance of the schooling system across years. They are designed to test whether the individual learner qualifies for a certificate, based on the subjects the learner has chosen.”
The department suggests that “[i]f one wants to compare how well the system is doing, one should turn to testing systems like the international TIMSS and SACMEQ programmes, where South Africa has participated for some years.”
High dropout rate skews results
A further flaw in using the matric pass rate as a barometer of national performance is that thousands of school pupils drop out long before they reach their final year. The dropout rate is not taken into account in the final pass rate.
For example, when the 2013 matric class started grade one in 2002, there were 1,261,827 pupils. But by the time they came to sit for their final exams, their numbers had fallen to 562,112.
Nicholas Spaull, a researcher at Stellenbosch University who focuses on primary education, says that “students are pushed through the system until grade 10, and then schools realise that if they put these kids through, they are not going to pass grade 12”.
“Getting low pass rates in matric is problematic for schools, so they weed out these students.”
The ‘culling process’
A group of schoolchildren in central Pretoria. Photo: AFP/Alexander JoeThe matric rate is thus bumped up and gives no indication of how the 50% that fall by the wayside are doing. Jansen, in his opinion piece, called it a “culling process” that has left behind half a million people with little or no proper education.
Mary Metcalfe, former head of the Wits University School of Education and a former provincial government minister for education in South Africa’s Gauteng province, echoes these concerns. “[The pass rate] doesn’t tell us about the large number of children who didn’t make matric, who didn’t pass grade ten, who didn’t pass grade 11 and who failed at grade 12,” she said.
The dropout rate has had a significant impact. A 2011 report revealed that “60% of youths are left with no qualification at all beyond the Grade 9 level”.
Pupils are choosing easier subjects
Whether as a result of school pressure or individual choice, pupils are increasingly taking easier subjects.
In 2010, 263,034 full-time pupils wrote mathematics. This decreased to 241,509 pupils in 2013. Conversely, numbers of full-time pupils writing mathematical literacy, the easier subject, increased from 280,836 in 2010 to 324,097 in 2013.
The department of basic education acknowledges the impact this has on the final pass rate. “A key factor is the spread of learners across subjects. When this changes, the pass rate can change, even if performance in individual subjects remains the same. In particular, if learners move to easier subjects, more learners pass.”
Good performances skew the average
The matric results also conceal the underperformance of the majority of pupils who write the examination. Strong performances in a minority of schools will mask the poor performance of the majority of schools that are judged as dysfunctional.
This skews the average, and does not present a true reflection of the mean for most pupils. This point was also highlighted in Jansen’s criticism of the matric results. “[I]f you removed the top 20% of schools – mainly former white, privileged schools – from the national averages, then a very dark picture emerges of a mainly black and poor school system performing far below what the combined results show,” he wrote.
Conclusion – Matric pass rate doesn’t mean education is on the right track
The improvement in the matric pass rate is good news for those concerned, but it is not a sign that the “system is on the right track”, nor that the quality of the education system is improving. An Africa Check report looking at claims made about the 2012 matric results came to the same conclusions.
The matric results are not a good measure of academic achievement in the education system. As the department has acknowledged, they are not designed for yearly comparison or to be a reflection of academic achievement in the education system. The good performance of a minority of schools can also skew the results, as can pupils electing to take easier subjects.
The results only account for about half of those who entered school together. South Africa’s high dropout rate means that many young people will never get the chance to write their matric examinations, let alone pass them.
Source: Africa Check
Showing posts with label Angie Motshekga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angie Motshekga. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Monday, August 6, 2012
Young Communist League - firing Angie Motshekga won't help
The cheapest political point for any youth formation to score at this time is to jump onto the bandwagon of hatred for Angie Motshekga. The minister of basic education, as the foremost educator in the government, is taking a lot of heat for the mess that is the Limpopo education department. Having failed to deliver textbooks for schools for Grades 1 – 3 and 10 for more than half a year, the department has become a mockery and even the intervention of a provincial task team and the national department has not cleared the mess up. This has become so big that alliance members of the ruling African National Congress have started to voice their concerns. Very loudly and publicly.
When it emerged that national treasury would have to fork out additional funds to support a catch-up programme and pay teachers overtime, the Congress of South African Students president Bongani Mani said, “We reiterate our call to Mama Angie to stop playing games and embarrassing the ANC-led government any further and resign immediately [to] spare President Jacob Zuma the pain of having to fire her… Minister Angie must not force the National Treasury to waste taxpayers’ money; rather she must take [it] from her salary and all those found responsible [should] pay for all that needs to be paid to remedy the crisis that has emerged on her watch.”
For its part, the ANC Youth League threatened action if Motshekga did not go. The deputy secretary general Kenetswe Mosenogi said, “Minister Motshekga is herself an obstacle to education; she cannot take responsibility for the most basic of challenges. She must resign within two weeks or we will mobilise our members and occupy the basic education department in Pretoria.”
Yet at the 91st birthday rally of the South African Communist Party on Sunday, the secretary of the Young Communist League Buti Manamela said that firing Motshekga may not be a smart move since the rot actually lies deep in her department.
In an interview with Daily Maverick, he said that he did not specifically call for the DoBE minister to be fired because this was really the prerogative of the president. “[Zuma] has commissioned a report on the matter and he will decide what action to take based on that report, whether it is a rap on the knuckles, or redeploying [Motshekga], or whatever,” Manamela said.
He continued: “Whether the president decides to fire her or not, there are people in the department who are responsible for this. Even if you fire her, you have to clear out these people as well. You can call for Angie’s head, but it won’t help the situation.”
The YCL secretary directed most of his ire at EduSolutions, the company that won the tender to deliver textbooks in Limpopo. He said, “The people who were given business by government – they should not have been working with the government in the first place if they cannot do something as simple as taking a textbook from A to B. This goes to the heart of the crisis in the system. It goes to our call to ban tenders in crucial services in government.”
At the birthday rally, communist party general secretary Blade Nzimande said that the government should not be outsourcing services in ‘priority services’ as identified by the ANC, like education and health, but the state should build capacity to deliver these services itself.
Manamela said that there were stories emerging that suggested the EduSolutions problem was not limited to Limpopo, but that the company was overcharging the government in other provinces, and delivering the wrong textbooks all over the country where it has tenders.
He said that they were not excluding the possibility that someone or some people in Limpopo were deliberately sabotaging this task so as to interfere with the Section 100 administrative action taken by the national government in several departments in Limpopo.
At the end of last year, the Cabinet took a decision to enact a provision of the Constitution which allows it to inject itself unilaterally into a provincial government. Since the same document is very strict about separation of powers between the different tiers of government, a lot has to go wrong before the uppermost echelon can take such an action. Unfortunately for the people of that province, premier Cassel Mathale and several of his key people chose to interpret this as a hostile political move (perhaps aimed at punishing Mathale for his longstanding support for Zuma’s enemy, Julius Malema).
Whether the textbook crisis could have been sparked deliberately is a question we may never be able to answer, but we do already know that several suspects in the department have tried to silence one of the key whistle-blowers.
Ironically, the YCL stance brings it in line with that of the opposition party Democratic Alliance, which has said that Motshekga is perhaps not the one person to blame in this.
Party leader Helen Zille wrote, “…we in the Western Cape have experienced Minister Angie Motshekga as one of the few – perhaps the only – education ministers since the dawn of democracy 18 years ago who genuinely understands the needs of the school system and is prepared to take some tough decisions to fix it. She stands virtually alone, in the wasteland of education's ‘shell state’, where many incompetent cadres masquerade as top officials with fancy titles, but have little understanding of and even less commitment to the needs of education.”
Despite this stance, the party has since called for her to resign.
Meanwhile, the outcomes of a report commissioned by Zuma, and another by the Limpopo premier, are still to be announced or released publicly. An independent auditor sent out by the DoBE found that many schools still hadn’t received textbooks despite a court order compelling the department to clear the mess up by June 27.
Perhaps calls for Motshekga to resign are not that misplaced. The buck ought to, after all, stop with her. Sipho Hlongwane
Source: Daily Maverick
When it emerged that national treasury would have to fork out additional funds to support a catch-up programme and pay teachers overtime, the Congress of South African Students president Bongani Mani said, “We reiterate our call to Mama Angie to stop playing games and embarrassing the ANC-led government any further and resign immediately [to] spare President Jacob Zuma the pain of having to fire her… Minister Angie must not force the National Treasury to waste taxpayers’ money; rather she must take [it] from her salary and all those found responsible [should] pay for all that needs to be paid to remedy the crisis that has emerged on her watch.”
For its part, the ANC Youth League threatened action if Motshekga did not go. The deputy secretary general Kenetswe Mosenogi said, “Minister Motshekga is herself an obstacle to education; she cannot take responsibility for the most basic of challenges. She must resign within two weeks or we will mobilise our members and occupy the basic education department in Pretoria.”
Yet at the 91st birthday rally of the South African Communist Party on Sunday, the secretary of the Young Communist League Buti Manamela said that firing Motshekga may not be a smart move since the rot actually lies deep in her department.
In an interview with Daily Maverick, he said that he did not specifically call for the DoBE minister to be fired because this was really the prerogative of the president. “[Zuma] has commissioned a report on the matter and he will decide what action to take based on that report, whether it is a rap on the knuckles, or redeploying [Motshekga], or whatever,” Manamela said.
He continued: “Whether the president decides to fire her or not, there are people in the department who are responsible for this. Even if you fire her, you have to clear out these people as well. You can call for Angie’s head, but it won’t help the situation.”
The YCL secretary directed most of his ire at EduSolutions, the company that won the tender to deliver textbooks in Limpopo. He said, “The people who were given business by government – they should not have been working with the government in the first place if they cannot do something as simple as taking a textbook from A to B. This goes to the heart of the crisis in the system. It goes to our call to ban tenders in crucial services in government.”
At the birthday rally, communist party general secretary Blade Nzimande said that the government should not be outsourcing services in ‘priority services’ as identified by the ANC, like education and health, but the state should build capacity to deliver these services itself.
Manamela said that there were stories emerging that suggested the EduSolutions problem was not limited to Limpopo, but that the company was overcharging the government in other provinces, and delivering the wrong textbooks all over the country where it has tenders.
He said that they were not excluding the possibility that someone or some people in Limpopo were deliberately sabotaging this task so as to interfere with the Section 100 administrative action taken by the national government in several departments in Limpopo.
At the end of last year, the Cabinet took a decision to enact a provision of the Constitution which allows it to inject itself unilaterally into a provincial government. Since the same document is very strict about separation of powers between the different tiers of government, a lot has to go wrong before the uppermost echelon can take such an action. Unfortunately for the people of that province, premier Cassel Mathale and several of his key people chose to interpret this as a hostile political move (perhaps aimed at punishing Mathale for his longstanding support for Zuma’s enemy, Julius Malema).
Whether the textbook crisis could have been sparked deliberately is a question we may never be able to answer, but we do already know that several suspects in the department have tried to silence one of the key whistle-blowers.
Ironically, the YCL stance brings it in line with that of the opposition party Democratic Alliance, which has said that Motshekga is perhaps not the one person to blame in this.
Party leader Helen Zille wrote, “…we in the Western Cape have experienced Minister Angie Motshekga as one of the few – perhaps the only – education ministers since the dawn of democracy 18 years ago who genuinely understands the needs of the school system and is prepared to take some tough decisions to fix it. She stands virtually alone, in the wasteland of education's ‘shell state’, where many incompetent cadres masquerade as top officials with fancy titles, but have little understanding of and even less commitment to the needs of education.”
Despite this stance, the party has since called for her to resign.
Meanwhile, the outcomes of a report commissioned by Zuma, and another by the Limpopo premier, are still to be announced or released publicly. An independent auditor sent out by the DoBE found that many schools still hadn’t received textbooks despite a court order compelling the department to clear the mess up by June 27.
Perhaps calls for Motshekga to resign are not that misplaced. The buck ought to, after all, stop with her. Sipho Hlongwane
Source: Daily Maverick
Friday, July 27, 2012
Limpopo asks publishers to supply cheapest textbooks
Limpopo teachers have voiced concern over the quality of textbooks as the price war between the basic education department and publishers rages on. A price war raging between the basic education department and publishers throws into doubt whether Limpopo schools will receive the textbooks they need for next year.
The Mail & Guardian has learnt that schools across the country are participating in the selection of textbooks from a national catalogue, but Limpopo schools are not. Schools in this province will not select preferred textbooks for teaching Caps, the new curriculum — the basic education department will supply them with the "cheapest" books available. Caps will be taught in all school grades except grades seven, eight, nine and 12 next year, and new textbooks are required.
The situation is in contrast to the selection approach the department began implementing nationally in 2010. With the help of curriculum experts in workshops, teachers and principals evaluate scores of sample textbooks publishers have supplied to the department. Poor schools then choose the textbooks to order from publishers, but through their provincial departments. The process was undertaken to ensure that schools selected quality textbooks from those placed on the national catalogue, experts told the M&G.
Some teachers in Limpopo have already voiced concern that the textbooks delivered to their schools in recent weeks are not what they ordered. A teacher said this week her school had not started using the textbooks, because they were not what the teachers had been trained to use in workshops and some were of poor quality.
She said that because the books were not those they had ordered, they did not correspond with the samples they had been using since the year started. "We are still photocopying the samples for our learners," she said. "The Tshivenda book is very poor; you ask yourself how did this book make it on to the national catalogue?"
Publishers have agreed to supply the department with the cheapest textbooks available for the current schooling year, but one told the M&G they did this to "help the Limpopo education department out of a really difficult position". But they said it would be financially detrimental for them if the department used the same system to procure textbooks for 2013. "If publishers are pushed to reduce their prices further, they will not be able to survive."
In a letter sent to publishers more than two weeks ago, which the M&G has seen, the administrator of the Limpopo education department, Mzwandile Matthews, stressed the indication of "lowest prices" for textbooks. The "guiding principle" in ordering textbooks for Limpopo, Matthews said in his letter, "will remain the reduced price and availability of the consignments". The basic education department remains in control of the provincial department since it was placed under administration in December.
Publishers have complained to Matthews about the procurement process the department follows. But Hope Mokgatlhe, the ministry's spokesperson, denied that the department was planning to buy the cheapest books for Limpopo schools. "The department has no intention to purchase the 'cheapest' books but books whose prices would not be higher than those in the national catalogue," Mokgatlhe said.
Barring teachers from selecting textbooks will adversely affect teaching, experts have warned. "If the teachers cannot work comfortably with the textbooks they have been given, the quality of their teaching will suffer," said Ruth Pressler, a curriculum expert. "It is unlikely that officials will be aware of the needs of the schools, as is evident by the recent news that a school for the blind was sent material meant for sighted learners."
Carol Bertram, senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's school of education, said teachers would be affected differently. "Some teachers will not mind just being given a textbook. Other teachers may find that the textbook chosen for them does not suit the needs of the learners and then they may not use it at all."
Meanwhile, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga cracked the whip at principals who spoke to the media about education problems in Limpopo's schools. Two principals who attended Motshekga's meeting with primary school leaders in Lebowakgomo on Wednesday independently confirmed to the M&G she "strongly" warned them against talking to the media. "She opened [and closed] her address by reminding us that there is only one spokesperson for the [provincial education] department," one of the principals said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
The Mail & Guardian has learnt that schools across the country are participating in the selection of textbooks from a national catalogue, but Limpopo schools are not. Schools in this province will not select preferred textbooks for teaching Caps, the new curriculum — the basic education department will supply them with the "cheapest" books available. Caps will be taught in all school grades except grades seven, eight, nine and 12 next year, and new textbooks are required.
The situation is in contrast to the selection approach the department began implementing nationally in 2010. With the help of curriculum experts in workshops, teachers and principals evaluate scores of sample textbooks publishers have supplied to the department. Poor schools then choose the textbooks to order from publishers, but through their provincial departments. The process was undertaken to ensure that schools selected quality textbooks from those placed on the national catalogue, experts told the M&G.
Some teachers in Limpopo have already voiced concern that the textbooks delivered to their schools in recent weeks are not what they ordered. A teacher said this week her school had not started using the textbooks, because they were not what the teachers had been trained to use in workshops and some were of poor quality.
She said that because the books were not those they had ordered, they did not correspond with the samples they had been using since the year started. "We are still photocopying the samples for our learners," she said. "The Tshivenda book is very poor; you ask yourself how did this book make it on to the national catalogue?"
Publishers have agreed to supply the department with the cheapest textbooks available for the current schooling year, but one told the M&G they did this to "help the Limpopo education department out of a really difficult position". But they said it would be financially detrimental for them if the department used the same system to procure textbooks for 2013. "If publishers are pushed to reduce their prices further, they will not be able to survive."
In a letter sent to publishers more than two weeks ago, which the M&G has seen, the administrator of the Limpopo education department, Mzwandile Matthews, stressed the indication of "lowest prices" for textbooks. The "guiding principle" in ordering textbooks for Limpopo, Matthews said in his letter, "will remain the reduced price and availability of the consignments". The basic education department remains in control of the provincial department since it was placed under administration in December.
Publishers have complained to Matthews about the procurement process the department follows. But Hope Mokgatlhe, the ministry's spokesperson, denied that the department was planning to buy the cheapest books for Limpopo schools. "The department has no intention to purchase the 'cheapest' books but books whose prices would not be higher than those in the national catalogue," Mokgatlhe said.
Barring teachers from selecting textbooks will adversely affect teaching, experts have warned. "If the teachers cannot work comfortably with the textbooks they have been given, the quality of their teaching will suffer," said Ruth Pressler, a curriculum expert. "It is unlikely that officials will be aware of the needs of the schools, as is evident by the recent news that a school for the blind was sent material meant for sighted learners."
Carol Bertram, senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's school of education, said teachers would be affected differently. "Some teachers will not mind just being given a textbook. Other teachers may find that the textbook chosen for them does not suit the needs of the learners and then they may not use it at all."
Meanwhile, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga cracked the whip at principals who spoke to the media about education problems in Limpopo's schools. Two principals who attended Motshekga's meeting with primary school leaders in Lebowakgomo on Wednesday independently confirmed to the M&G she "strongly" warned them against talking to the media. "She opened [and closed] her address by reminding us that there is only one spokesperson for the [provincial education] department," one of the principals said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Friday, June 29, 2012
Textbook crisis: Education department favoured dodgy tender
The education ministry was informed EduSolutions's contract was in breach of various regulations before using it as a supplier for school textbooks.
The Limpopo textbook crisis was created by the department of basic education's reluctance to bypass EduSolutions, despite sitting on a scathing legal opinion that found the politically connected textbook supply company's R320-million contract with Limpopo was "neither fair, equitable, transparent, competitive nor cost effective".
As early as January 17, the national department received a recommendation from senior counsel advocate Pat Ellis that the department had to order textbooks outside of the contract with EduSolutions, which he found was "probably invalid".
Instead, the department waited until early May to place the orders.
The Mail & Guardian has obtained an opinion given to state attorney John Ngoetjana by Ellis as early as January 17 this year that the EduSolutions contract was probably unconstitutional and in breach of treasury regulations and the Public Finance Management Act.
It recommended that the department use an urgency provision in treasury regulations to source the books from another supplier.
Basic education director general Bobby Soobrayan confirmed on Thursday that Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga had been informed of the legal opinion. "The minister would have been told of the opinion early," Soobrayan said.
The M&G has also seen a circular sent to Soobrayan and Limpopo's basic education minister Dickson Masemola by the former head of the department's intervention team in Limpopo, Anis Karodia.
He stated that the textbooks contract had been "allocated to a private company [EduSolutions] at an exorbitant tender price that had compromised the department" and that "the company is under investigation and we are not allowed to procure from the said company".
The M&G was unable to establish who is investigating EduSolutions.
It has also been reported that a departmental whistle-blower, Solly Tshitangano, alerted Motshekga in July last year to alleged irregularities in the textbooks tender. Tshitangano has been suspended for alleged misconduct related to procurement.
Despite this, Karodia terminated the EduSolutions contract only on April 26 this year and the national department waited until early May to place new book orders.
The main source of that delay appears to have been Motshekga, who assured EduSolutions on April 2 that everything was still in order and that the department would honour the contract.
EduSolutions director Moosa Ntimba told the M&G this week that it planned to bring a civil claim next week against the department for "monies outstanding" and "loss of profit", maintaining that "there was no indication from the minister [on April 2] that the contract would be terminated".
Ntimba said the company had "fully co-operated" with the department. He also disputed Karodia's criticism of the "exorbitant" tender price, saying the prices were agreed "between the government and publishers".
Last week, EduSolutions failed in an application to the North Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg to have the contract reinstated.
In his opinion, Ellis said he was "confident that a proper case can be made that the contract should be reviewed and declared void".
"I am therefore of the view that the department ought to procure school books for Limpopo in terms of the urgency provisions of … treasury regulations."
His opinion also makes it clear that he consulted two senior officials from the national education department.
Karodia took over the department's administration in December, which he described as a "free-for-all" (See "Intervention team uncovers 'massive mismanagement of funds'" below).
In particular, he noted that there appeared to be "a dominant force of members within the bid adjudicating committee and they receive instructions and pronouncements form influential staff regarding the awarding of tenders".
In late March or early April, EduSolutions lodged a complaint with Motshekga and Soobrayan about Karodia's conduct, claiming that his "verbal and written utterances were defamatory, unsubstantiated and subjective".
Later in May, Motshekga removed Karodia from his position. Soobrayan said that he was removed because he was a bad manager, was "argumentative" and "made allegations about the [provincial minister Masemola] which were embarrassing to the minister".
Soobrayan also said that Karodia had spoken directly to publishers while disregarding the EduSolutions contract.
Karodia has been quoted as saying that he wanted to terminate EduSolution's contract "as soon as the intervention team arrived in Limpopo", but that he faced resistance from the national department and Motshekga.
He told City Press last week: "Myself and [chief administrator] Monde Tom raised the issue with her [Motshekga]. She said, no, no, we have to buy from EduSolutions.
"After a month and a half, Soobrayan came down to Limpopo and said we should cancel the EduSolutions contract."
An education official, who asked not to be named, said that "if the department had terminated the contract early enough, we could have had the books in the schools by April or May".
Although Motshekga has tried to distance herself from the root causes of the textbook crisis, blaming it on administrative impediments, she was alerted to concern about the validity of EduSolution's contract as early as July last year.
The M&G has seen copies of correspondence sent to Motshekga on July 5 2011 by Tshitangano alerting her to alleged "irregular transactions in the Limpopo department of education".
Tshitangano was suspended in April 2011 on charges of misconduct broadly relating "to procurement issues that occurred in May 2010" when the department advertised a bid to outsource the procurement and distribution of pupil and teacher support material to schools in the province.
In a Labour Court affidavit, Tshitangano, who is claiming unfair dismissal, said that he raised several concerns regarding the bid adjudicating committee's decision to appoint EduSolutions as the preferred bidder.
According to Tshitangano, it was not clear on what basis the tender was awarded to EduSolutions, given that the competitive bidding process necessarily involved the assessment of tenders on a points-scoring system.
The bid committee simply indicated that of the 23 bids received, only one service provider met the criteria, obviating the need for scoring and extracting any comparative analysis between competitive bids.
Tshitangano said it was unclear whether any cost-benefit analysis for the services required was done before the bid was advertised.
He wrote to the head of the Limpopo education department, Bennie Boshielo, advising him to request that state law advisers and risk and supply-chain management from the treasury carry out a review. This never took place.
In his legal opinion, Ellis noted that no order had been placed for school books in Limpopo for 2012 and "position is critical, since the first school term is a day away and no school books have been ordered".
Describing the supply system provided for in the service-level agreement with EduSolutions, he noted that:
It allows all schools to buy the most expensive books, regardless of their quality or the need for them and without regard to budgetary constraints;
After negotiating the best deal with publishers, EduSolutions could keep 30% of any discount, passing on the balance to the department. However, this was not audited.
The arrangement lacked the benefit of an open tender – of procuring the product as cheaply and effectively as possible. "The contract has appropriated that benefit for the supplier and has deprived the department of that benefit," he said.
Ellis concluded that the agreement breached the stipulated legislation in that "the provincial department appears to have attempted (to contract) out of its obligation to manage demand, acquisition, logistics and risk and left those to be dealt with by the supplier."
Intervention team uncovers 'massive mismanagement of funds'
Confidential circulars penned by Anis Karodia, head of the intervention task team sent in by the national government, throw into mind-boggling relief the administrative chaos, financial mayhem, waste and plunder of public resources he unearthed in the Limpopo education department.
In two circulars dated March 12 and March 16 2012 and distributed to the head of the intervention unit, the treasury's Monde Tom, Limpopo's minister for education Dickson Masemola, the department's chief financial officer, Martin Mashaba, and the director general of basic education, Bobby Soobrayan, Karodia declared: "There is no doubt that there has been a massive mismanagement of funds."He also said that the department had "waded through the latter part of 2011-2012 in a state of bankruptcy".
He conservatively estimated budget overruns and misappropriation, stemming back to 2009, at R2.6-billion.
Salaries and compensation costs stood at 87% of the total yearly budget, leaving a miniscule amount for the delivery of education services.
Karodia said Mashaba and the department's entire "top-heavy" financial system was unqualified, unable to monitor spending and had "a disregard for" planning.
Senior managers had little understanding of the department and were "slow, cumbersome and lack … direction", whereas supervision was poor and managers were unavailable when important documentation and discussions were required.
In general, the staff did "not have the attitude or will to work". There was no sense of purpose, which had led to a "free-for-all".
Karodia said the "monetary quagmire" would have to be dealt with through the three-year medium-term framework and beyond in order to stabilise the department.
Among the consequences were that schools were starved of funding, services were not provided and service providers went unpaid.
He said the school nutrition programme in Limpopo, which feeds children from impoverished households, needed to be revived.
Other consequences of the crisis were:
More than R50-million was owed to transport service providers, who were effectively double-charging the department through the use of an approved payment system that charged per pupil and for running costs;
Department cellphone and landline bills, which Karodia described as "vulgar", were each running at about R1-million a month;
There was aimless and unnecessary travel by a host of officials;
Many schools had not paid their electricity bills;
There was unnecessary catering and abuse of the grocery budget;
Too many workshops and meetings were held while work remained incomplete and there was unnecessary training of senior staff who should already have had the correct competency;
There were excessive hotel stays; and
District and circular office support was poor and these offices also showed poor initiative in rolling out directives from the department.
Source: Mail & Guardian
The Limpopo textbook crisis was created by the department of basic education's reluctance to bypass EduSolutions, despite sitting on a scathing legal opinion that found the politically connected textbook supply company's R320-million contract with Limpopo was "neither fair, equitable, transparent, competitive nor cost effective".
As early as January 17, the national department received a recommendation from senior counsel advocate Pat Ellis that the department had to order textbooks outside of the contract with EduSolutions, which he found was "probably invalid".
Instead, the department waited until early May to place the orders.
The Mail & Guardian has obtained an opinion given to state attorney John Ngoetjana by Ellis as early as January 17 this year that the EduSolutions contract was probably unconstitutional and in breach of treasury regulations and the Public Finance Management Act.
It recommended that the department use an urgency provision in treasury regulations to source the books from another supplier.
Basic education director general Bobby Soobrayan confirmed on Thursday that Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga had been informed of the legal opinion. "The minister would have been told of the opinion early," Soobrayan said.
The M&G has also seen a circular sent to Soobrayan and Limpopo's basic education minister Dickson Masemola by the former head of the department's intervention team in Limpopo, Anis Karodia.
He stated that the textbooks contract had been "allocated to a private company [EduSolutions] at an exorbitant tender price that had compromised the department" and that "the company is under investigation and we are not allowed to procure from the said company".
The M&G was unable to establish who is investigating EduSolutions.
It has also been reported that a departmental whistle-blower, Solly Tshitangano, alerted Motshekga in July last year to alleged irregularities in the textbooks tender. Tshitangano has been suspended for alleged misconduct related to procurement.
Despite this, Karodia terminated the EduSolutions contract only on April 26 this year and the national department waited until early May to place new book orders.
The main source of that delay appears to have been Motshekga, who assured EduSolutions on April 2 that everything was still in order and that the department would honour the contract.
EduSolutions director Moosa Ntimba told the M&G this week that it planned to bring a civil claim next week against the department for "monies outstanding" and "loss of profit", maintaining that "there was no indication from the minister [on April 2] that the contract would be terminated".
Ntimba said the company had "fully co-operated" with the department. He also disputed Karodia's criticism of the "exorbitant" tender price, saying the prices were agreed "between the government and publishers".
Last week, EduSolutions failed in an application to the North Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg to have the contract reinstated.
In his opinion, Ellis said he was "confident that a proper case can be made that the contract should be reviewed and declared void".
"I am therefore of the view that the department ought to procure school books for Limpopo in terms of the urgency provisions of … treasury regulations."
His opinion also makes it clear that he consulted two senior officials from the national education department.
Karodia took over the department's administration in December, which he described as a "free-for-all" (See "Intervention team uncovers 'massive mismanagement of funds'" below).
In particular, he noted that there appeared to be "a dominant force of members within the bid adjudicating committee and they receive instructions and pronouncements form influential staff regarding the awarding of tenders".
In late March or early April, EduSolutions lodged a complaint with Motshekga and Soobrayan about Karodia's conduct, claiming that his "verbal and written utterances were defamatory, unsubstantiated and subjective".
Later in May, Motshekga removed Karodia from his position. Soobrayan said that he was removed because he was a bad manager, was "argumentative" and "made allegations about the [provincial minister Masemola] which were embarrassing to the minister".
Soobrayan also said that Karodia had spoken directly to publishers while disregarding the EduSolutions contract.
Karodia has been quoted as saying that he wanted to terminate EduSolution's contract "as soon as the intervention team arrived in Limpopo", but that he faced resistance from the national department and Motshekga.
He told City Press last week: "Myself and [chief administrator] Monde Tom raised the issue with her [Motshekga]. She said, no, no, we have to buy from EduSolutions.
"After a month and a half, Soobrayan came down to Limpopo and said we should cancel the EduSolutions contract."
An education official, who asked not to be named, said that "if the department had terminated the contract early enough, we could have had the books in the schools by April or May".
Although Motshekga has tried to distance herself from the root causes of the textbook crisis, blaming it on administrative impediments, she was alerted to concern about the validity of EduSolution's contract as early as July last year.
The M&G has seen copies of correspondence sent to Motshekga on July 5 2011 by Tshitangano alerting her to alleged "irregular transactions in the Limpopo department of education".
Tshitangano was suspended in April 2011 on charges of misconduct broadly relating "to procurement issues that occurred in May 2010" when the department advertised a bid to outsource the procurement and distribution of pupil and teacher support material to schools in the province.
In a Labour Court affidavit, Tshitangano, who is claiming unfair dismissal, said that he raised several concerns regarding the bid adjudicating committee's decision to appoint EduSolutions as the preferred bidder.
According to Tshitangano, it was not clear on what basis the tender was awarded to EduSolutions, given that the competitive bidding process necessarily involved the assessment of tenders on a points-scoring system.
The bid committee simply indicated that of the 23 bids received, only one service provider met the criteria, obviating the need for scoring and extracting any comparative analysis between competitive bids.
Tshitangano said it was unclear whether any cost-benefit analysis for the services required was done before the bid was advertised.
He wrote to the head of the Limpopo education department, Bennie Boshielo, advising him to request that state law advisers and risk and supply-chain management from the treasury carry out a review. This never took place.
In his legal opinion, Ellis noted that no order had been placed for school books in Limpopo for 2012 and "position is critical, since the first school term is a day away and no school books have been ordered".
Describing the supply system provided for in the service-level agreement with EduSolutions, he noted that:
It allows all schools to buy the most expensive books, regardless of their quality or the need for them and without regard to budgetary constraints;
After negotiating the best deal with publishers, EduSolutions could keep 30% of any discount, passing on the balance to the department. However, this was not audited.
The arrangement lacked the benefit of an open tender – of procuring the product as cheaply and effectively as possible. "The contract has appropriated that benefit for the supplier and has deprived the department of that benefit," he said.
Ellis concluded that the agreement breached the stipulated legislation in that "the provincial department appears to have attempted (to contract) out of its obligation to manage demand, acquisition, logistics and risk and left those to be dealt with by the supplier."
Intervention team uncovers 'massive mismanagement of funds'
Confidential circulars penned by Anis Karodia, head of the intervention task team sent in by the national government, throw into mind-boggling relief the administrative chaos, financial mayhem, waste and plunder of public resources he unearthed in the Limpopo education department.
In two circulars dated March 12 and March 16 2012 and distributed to the head of the intervention unit, the treasury's Monde Tom, Limpopo's minister for education Dickson Masemola, the department's chief financial officer, Martin Mashaba, and the director general of basic education, Bobby Soobrayan, Karodia declared: "There is no doubt that there has been a massive mismanagement of funds."He also said that the department had "waded through the latter part of 2011-2012 in a state of bankruptcy".
He conservatively estimated budget overruns and misappropriation, stemming back to 2009, at R2.6-billion.
Salaries and compensation costs stood at 87% of the total yearly budget, leaving a miniscule amount for the delivery of education services.
Karodia said Mashaba and the department's entire "top-heavy" financial system was unqualified, unable to monitor spending and had "a disregard for" planning.
Senior managers had little understanding of the department and were "slow, cumbersome and lack … direction", whereas supervision was poor and managers were unavailable when important documentation and discussions were required.
In general, the staff did "not have the attitude or will to work". There was no sense of purpose, which had led to a "free-for-all".
Karodia said the "monetary quagmire" would have to be dealt with through the three-year medium-term framework and beyond in order to stabilise the department.
Among the consequences were that schools were starved of funding, services were not provided and service providers went unpaid.
He said the school nutrition programme in Limpopo, which feeds children from impoverished households, needed to be revived.
Other consequences of the crisis were:
More than R50-million was owed to transport service providers, who were effectively double-charging the department through the use of an approved payment system that charged per pupil and for running costs;
Department cellphone and landline bills, which Karodia described as "vulgar", were each running at about R1-million a month;
There was aimless and unnecessary travel by a host of officials;
Many schools had not paid their electricity bills;
There was unnecessary catering and abuse of the grocery budget;
Too many workshops and meetings were held while work remained incomplete and there was unnecessary training of senior staff who should already have had the correct competency;
There were excessive hotel stays; and
District and circular office support was poor and these offices also showed poor initiative in rolling out directives from the department.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Monday, July 27, 2009
Vavi blasts expenditure rule
COSATU general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has spoken against the purchase of new flashy cars worth almost R4 million by Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda and Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga.
Speaking to Sowetan yesterday, Vavi said the rule in the ministerial handbook, which allows ministers to buy cars worth 70% of their annual salaries, was “immoral and wrong”.
“Rule or no rule, they can’t just purchase expensive cars at taxpayers’ expense, giving an impression that they do not care about the message this opulence gives to the poor,” he said.
Speaking on the eve of a nationwide municipal workers’ strike , Vavi said: “Cosatu won’t be able to convince workers to go easy when they see cars worth millions bought by ministers. ”
“It is management with their hugely inflated salaries who are responsible for the sorry state of so many municipalities,” said Samwu general secretary Mthandeki Nhlapo.
Source: The Sowetan
Speaking to Sowetan yesterday, Vavi said the rule in the ministerial handbook, which allows ministers to buy cars worth 70% of their annual salaries, was “immoral and wrong”.
“Rule or no rule, they can’t just purchase expensive cars at taxpayers’ expense, giving an impression that they do not care about the message this opulence gives to the poor,” he said.
Speaking on the eve of a nationwide municipal workers’ strike , Vavi said: “Cosatu won’t be able to convince workers to go easy when they see cars worth millions bought by ministers. ”
“It is management with their hugely inflated salaries who are responsible for the sorry state of so many municipalities,” said Samwu general secretary Mthandeki Nhlapo.
Source: The Sowetan
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