NDP to improve quality public education
In the quest to deliver quality public education, state’s political ruling party, consequently government have recommended the National Development Plan (NDP), the plan will order Northern Cape department of education and other provincial department to refocus their efforts on the realisation of Vision 2030.
The department is set to sustain the NDP programme with the objective of achieving improved results, as part of showing a negative start towards the programme; the department has already embarked on implementing the plan in -line with basic education sector blueprint, Action Plan 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025.
Addressing dignitaries coming from various organisations during her recent budget speech address, Northern Cape MEC for Grizelda Cjiekella outlined the importance of NDP and she remains optimistic that it will have a positive impact towards the development of education in the province despite all the challenges they might come across that could easily jeopardise the quality and level of education in the province.
Cjiekella said: “As the department we are going to align with the NDP theme that states: education system play a greater role in building an inclusive society, providing equal opportunities and helping all South Africans to realise their full potential, in particular those previously disadvantaged by apartheid policies, namely black people, women and people with disabilities”.
The NDP plan 2013 identifies significances in the basic education sector as an improvement of (1) human capacity; (2) school management; (3) district support; (4) infrastructure and (5) results-oriented mutual accountability between schools and communities.
In other important aspects The National Development Plan will then again highlight the importance of childhood development, especially in Pre Grade 1; in regards to the childhood development the plan will see a compulsory 2 years enrolment for the 4-5 years old before they kick-start with their GR1 classes.
Speaking around the Early Childhood Development Cjiekella said although it’s a long term target for the national department to introduce the rule of 2 years enrolment, the Northern Cape department of education will advance towards the plan. “We are encouraged that whilst national government works on making this a reality in the medium to long term periods, our province continues to make significant steps in increasing access to Grade R in public ordinary schools”, she added.