Basic Education Portfolio Audit Outcomes; DBE 2024/25 Annual Report; Readiness for 2025 NSC Exams; with the Minister and Deputy Minister

Video 2024/25 Annual Reports The Portfolio Committee convened to receive briefings on the 2024/25 audit outcomes and annual performance for the national Department of Basic Education (DBE) and its entities, as well as its readiness for the 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations. As the meeting got underway, the Chairperson immediately raised serious concerns about the spiking numbers of bullying and violence incidents observed in schools, referring to recent incidents in the Western Cape and Gauteng. A Member proposed that the Committee should urgently visit the sites of violence to receive a briefing from the provincial education departments (PEDs) on their anti-bullying policies and interventions. The Minister indicated her support for a move towards proactive intervention. The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) reported that the overall audit outcomes for the basic education portfolio had shown an improvement. The South African Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training (Umalusi) had achieved an unqualified opinion with no findings (a clean audit), demonstrating that it had successfully implemented corrective actions following a previous regression, and reflected robust controls. The DBE and the South African Council for Educators had maintained an unqualified opinion, but with findings related to compliance and/or performance reporting. The DBE had shown progress in reducing annual irregular expenditure from R955 million in 2022/23, to R68.2 million in 2024/25. However, the AGSA highlighted several deficiencies, noting that fruitless and wasteful expenditure had increased significantly, from R9 million to R60.4 million in the current financial year. This increase included R52.4 million attributed to the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) projects delegated to the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), where contractors had been allowed to appoint their own professional service providers, leading to collusion and payment for incomplete work. The AGSA stressed the need for national information technology systems and disciplined consequence management to prevent service providers from causing problems in one sector or province, and then reappearing elsewhere. The AGSA reported that the provincial education sector remained largely stagnant in outcomes. Crucially, all nine PEDs had submitted performance reports with material misstatements in 2024/25, signalling a significant regression from the previous year, where only one province had had material findings. Furthermore, seven out of nine PEDs were operating with a deficit, leading to unauthorised expenditure resulting from overspending on the compensation of employees. The Minister acknowledged the Department's unqualified audit opinion, but accepted the emphasis of matters, committing to improving oversight on consequence management. Responding to concerns about provincial autonomy, she said that the DBE would begin utilising Section eight of the National Education Policy Act to request remedial plans from non-performing provinces in respect of learner-teacher support material or scholar transport issues, with the possibility of tabling these plans in Parliament. The Director-General (DG) confirmed that the Education Labour Relations Council was conducting an audit of ghost workers and ghost learners across eight provinces, with results expected in a few months. The DBE's annual report showed that 94% of planned targets had been achieved, and provided details of the four targets not achieved. The audit committee reported improved risk management and an improvement in its maturity rating. On National Senior Certificate (NSC) readiness, the DBE reported that over 900 000 candidates had been registered, and that the Class of 2025 was performing comparably to, or better than, the previous cohort in gateway subjects. Umalusi confirmed general satisfaction with quality assurance ahead of the examinations, but highlighted that there were principals who prevented candidates from writing to inflate school results.