Medidas de Control del SARM

The Eastern Cape province is situated in the south-eastern part of South Africa. In 2012 an estimated 6,750,000 people lived in the Eastern Cape province. This was a representation of a little over 13 per cent of South Africa's population, of whom 88 per cent were black and six per cent were white and coloured (ECSECC, 2012). The Eastern Cape province faces significant social challenges: namely, addressing poverty, income inequality, food insecurity, and unemployment (ECSECC, 2012). The province is frequently measured as the poorest province in South Africa. The province is also characterized by high levels of food insecurity; close to 78% of the provinces‟ households may be classified as food insecure (ibid.). The economy of the Eastern Cape was both developed and underdeveloped (ECSECC, 2012). The Eastern Cape is the hub of South Africa‟s motor industry (South Africa. Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism [DEDEAT], 2013). Other economic activities include: tourism, harbours, renewables and green industries, forestry and timber processing, pharmaceuticals, plastics and chemicals (ibid.). The province has diverse climates and agricultural activities include production of fruit orchards, pineapples, dairy products, coffee and tea cultivation, maize, sorghum and sheep and cattle farming (ibid.). The province has good roads and rail infrastructures plus four airports (ibid.).

Due to the apartheid legacy and issues of social inequality, among other factors, the province produces the worst grade 12 results every year (ECSECC, 2015). The CAPS curriculum was tested at matric level in 2014 for the first time. In her speech10 on 5 January this year (2015) at the announcement of the 2014 National Senior Certificate examinations results the Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga said that of all the 81 education districts in the country, no district performed below 50 per cent in 2014. One district in the Eastern Cape had performed below 50 per cent in 2013. There was an overall improvement in the Eastern Cape results but this was still far from satisfactory (ECSECC, 2015). There are many social and economic factors that influence the performance rates of the learners in this province. The Nelson Mandela Foundation report on rural

education 2005 discusses lack of library facilities, poverty and large class sizes as some of the factors leading to poor results in the province. Recent research confirms most of those factors as still prevalent and they continue to affect the education quality in the province (Ncanywa, 2014). The Eastern Cape is characterised by different types of schools such as village, farm, township and town schools with a large number of village schools in the former Transkei (Ncanywa, 2014). There are twenty-three school districts demarcated across the province (ibid.). The districts are grouped into three clusters, geographically demarcated: cluster A, B and C. (ibid.). Cluster A and B are found at the eastern side of the province where a higher percentage of schools are located in villages and in small towns (Ncanywa, 2014). These clusters are 99,9 per cent rural and consist of schools situated in villages from the former Transkei and Ciskei in the apartheid era (ibid.). Most of these schools are underdeveloped with poor infrastructures and are made from mud and/or other inadequate building structures (ibid.). Cluster C has a number of former model C schools found in each district and three universities while clusters A and B have one university (ibid.). The study worked with teachers teaching in the Idutywa district in cluster B and from the Grahamstown district in cluster C (discussed in Section 4.3).

One of the main issues in the Eastern Cape is the lack of access to decent learning facilities, especially for the Science subjects (Hamann & Tuinder, 2012). Most schools lack libraries and many students do not have access to even the basic textbooks (ibid.). Lack of funding in the region and corruption scandals have further aggravated this problem leaving the province in dire need of a centre promoting Mathematics and Science at a school level (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005). The Eastern Cape has a hugely unbalanced distribution of teachers, and in some areas (particularly rural areas) many teaching posts have been vacant for years with parents having to pay from their own pockets (with the little they have) to ensure temporary teachers educate their children (ibid.). Class sizes and the learner teacher ratios in rural communities also tend to be high and thus have consequences on the quality of education here (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005; Murtin, 2013). Scholar transport is almost non-existent in some areas, making it extremely difficult for learners to attend school if they live more than a few kilometres from the school (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005). Other barriers to quality education in the rural areas include poverty; children often do not have enough to eat at home which negatively affects their ability to learn and despite government schools providing meals for students, these meals are often only mildly nutritional (Ncanywa, 2014).

It has been demonstrated that children with decent early childhood education have a much greater advantage than children who do not (UNESCO, 2003, cited in Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2005).

There are very few crèches and other early childhood development centres in the Eastern Cape rural areas, and this, coupled with the common lack of parental supervision (due to parents being away from home in order to find jobs), means children in rural communities are often greatly underprepared when they enter their first year of schooling (Hamann & Tuinder, 2012). A little over 15 per cent of over 20-year-olds in the province cannot read, and the same proportion cannot write (ibid.). In schools, language is also a barrier to effective teaching and learning (Murtin, 2013). A report compiled as part of background research into the Eastern Cape by Hamann and Tuinder (2012) has provided useful information on the environmental threats in the province. These include land degradation, high levels of soil erosion and high pressure on groundwater. The main use of water in the province is irrigation, which accounts for almost two thirds of water resources required in the Eastern Cape (ibid.). In terms of biodiversity, the Eastern Cape has a higher biome diversity than any other province in South Africa, with all South African biomes11 except the desert (ibid.). There are a number of endangered ecosystems in the province, though none were classified as critically endangered; however, a total of 316 threatened plant species are found in the province (ibid.). Hamann and Tuinder (2012) also reported that the Eastern Cape is home to four endemic freshwater fish species, eight threatened marine fish species, six threatened frog species (four of which are endemic), and 19 threatened reptile species (18 of which are endemic). Overall, the province‟s river ecosystems are under considerable pressure, because of high demands for water resources (ibid.). The Eastern Cape has more estuaries than any other province (Hamann & Tuinder, 2012). Most of these estuaries are described as healthy. These estuaries are important nursery and feeding areas for a wide range of fauna and flora, as well as being important recreational sites for tourists and residents (ibid.).

In addition to the Idutywa and Grahamstown districts in the Eastern Cape province, the study also reports on teachers in Cape Town (see Section 4.3), in the Western Cape province. The next section therefore provides contextual information on the Western Cape province.