Activity : Prepare a speech for 2 - 3 minutes on the topic " Universal Children's Day"
Answers
Answer:
Today is Universal Children’s Day – a day where across the world we honour children and reflect on the progress that we have made in realising and promoting the rights of children.
Today we should reflect on what we have done and what we are doing to protect, nurture and empower our children so that they may go on to lead lives that they value.
In the Western Cape, we believe that a quality education is the springboard from which our children may grow and develop to become active participants in shaping our communities and the economy that drives our development as a nation.
Former President, Mr Nelson Mandela, once said that:
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation.
Honourable Chairperson, if our education system is to support our social and economic development as well as develop the potential inherent in our children, we need to work better and smarter to ensure that more of our learners leave the education system with relevant knowledge and skills and are better placed to pursue higher education opportunities and participate meaningfully in any working environment.
Today I would like to share with you some of the strategies that the Western Cape Government has adopted to ensure that the education system in the Western Cape becomes the “great engine of personal development” that we need it to be.
To achieve this, we believe that our learners should be leaving school with the ability to read, write, calculate and reason.
This is possible where our learners have access to a school staffed with qualified teachers who are present, prepared and using texts. This school needs to have the necessary infrastructure and funding to accommodate the schooling needs of its learners, and should be managed by a competent and accountable principal. This school needs to be a safe environment within which quality teaching and learning can take place free from violence and substance abuse and children can experience a cross-section of what life has to offer.
Since 2009, the Western Cape Government has developed and implemented a number of sustainable systems improvements to ensure:
that we improve the literacy and numeracy levels of learners throughout the system;
that we increase the number of learners who progress through the system and complete their schooling, as well as the number of learners who go on to pursue higher ed