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The Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit

Presentation to Portfolio Committee21 May 2012

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Background• The establishment of the National Planning

Commission and the Performance Management and Evaluation (DPME) ministries in the Presidency signalled a sharpened focus on improved service delivery for all government departments;

• This renewed agenda on delivery requires – Improved planning processes

– Intensive monitoring and

– Strengthened accountability

Background

• In 2009, the DPME made the following statement:

“Government must be more effective in its actions…Since 1994 we have successfully expanded access to services. The quality of services has however often been below standard….we need to focus more on outcomes as we use our time, money and management. …..We need to understand and accept why we have too often not met our objectives in delivering quality service.”

Background• The DPME realised however that whilst improved planning

and performance evaluation systems would provide more focus on delivery – a special mechanism would be required to make delivery happen – and looked at international best practice for models and proposed the establishment of a delivery unit to drive the planning and delivery agenda by responding to:

“…a few carefully selected areas of blockages in the delivery. ..(and) partner the appropriate delivery institutions in working towards a turnaround. More importantly its interventions would create models for improving delivery that can be followed by others…. The unit will analyse failures in delivery and lessons from successes ….The unit will guide the implementation of change , empowering existing structures.”

The Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit:The case of the DBE

• Minister of Basic Education, Minister Angie Motshekga, in announcing the establishment of the Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit said:

“…we need a mechanism to effectively unblock bottlenecks to make the current system work better, faster and smarter…..We will use the Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit to align and integrate our programmes and ..refocus everybody around out core business – the effective delivery of the curriculum. The Planning and Delivery’s initial task will be to focus on improving the performance of poorly performing districts…”

Key priorities to improve the quality of schooling for all

• Action Plan to 2014: Towards the realisation of Schooling 2025 is the anchor; its outcomes and targets inform the key areas of focus towards more effective delivery;

• District and their interface with schools is the primary

point of entry for the Planning and Delivery Oversight

Unit – whilst working with and through provinces;

•

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Immediate focus in 2012• Work with the 15 districts that performed below 60% in the

2011 NSC exams to

– Understand reasons for the poor performance

– Identify key blockages and help unblock;

– Focus province on improving performance in 2012 in Grades 3, 6, 0 and 12.

• Priority activities towards improved performance will be through

– Support for district planning and implementation of support to schools;

– Clear support and intervention programmes for schools performing under 40% and

– Plans and programmes to improve not only %pass but quality of passes.

Focus on support for Learning • Focus on all grades and phases: Grade R – Grade 12

with particular emphasis on:– CAPS: their availability and utilisation in schools, as well as

teacher orientation/training to utilise CAPS;

– Workbooks: their availability and utilisation

– LTSM availability and utilisation in all grades;

– Teacher availability, development and utilisation

– Assessment and utilisation of assessment data to improve learning and teaching and teacher development (ANA, Matric)

– Learner performance improvement especially in multigrade and difficult contexts

– Curriculum coverage to ensure outcomes are achieved

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Ensuring community interest and participation in Education

• The QLTC is located within the PDOU with the priority mandate on ensuring implementation of core mandate of QLTC by all partners;

• Critical tools of the QLTC include

– QLTC structures and partners across all provinces and school communities;

– The NEDLAC Accord whose first programme is around adopting poor performing schools, guided by a clear protocol binding to all and

– A recent cabinet decision for parliamentarians to adopt poor performing districts in their constituencies – within a clear protocol developed by the DBE.

Working within DBE and with and through provinces

• The Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit is an additional “Branch” within the Department and therefore works to the DBE’s Strategic Plan and stated priorities and outcomes;

• The Learner Attainment Improvement strategy informs and guides the Units’s support to districts and schools;

• Credible District Improvement Plans and their implementation, as well as School Improvement Plans are a key vehicle in the support the unit provides; and

• Common district and school monitoring instruments being developed in the DBE will further focus the work of the unit.

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Key challenges in poorly performing districts

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LTSM Provision• The quality and coverage of LTSM is very unsatisfactory;

especially when taking into account the annual expenditure on LTSM

• The DBE introduced a National Catalogue to address this challenge and also provided workbooks and special Maths and Science books at FET level;

• However, inefficiencies continue for the following reasons:– Many Section 21 schools not purchasing books despite

allocation made to them;– National Catalogue not effectively implemented;– Workbooks and textbooks provided poorly used;– Poor or non-existent retrieval systems

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Teachers, Text & TimeThe context of poor performing districts

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Teacher Time on Task

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The percentage of grade 5 children taught by teachers who report spending at least 20 hours teaching per week (data from 2009)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Source: National School Effectiveness Study

Curriculum coverage

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Average number of Maths Curriculum topics (as specified in the curriculum) covered in the best learner's workbook (Grade 5, 2009)

Source: National School Effectiveness Study

0

2

4

6

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10

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Curriculum coverage

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Percentage of grade 5 children in classes in which the best learner's workbook revealed no evidence of paragraph length writing (data from 2009)

Source: National School Effectiveness Study

0

2

4

6

8

10

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Teacher content knowledge

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Mean reading teacher test scores by province in SACMEQ 3 (2007)

Source: SACMEQ 2007

500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

950

1000

Mean teacher reading test score

Teachers, Text and Time

• Impact of poor teacher attendance (in school and going to class); poor preparation; and poor curriculum coverage is having a serious impact on performance in many of the 15 districts – and broadly in the provinces they are located in;

• Aggravated in the Eastern Cape districts by the existing policy around employment of teachers (power lies with province) which leads to huge vacancies across the province;

• Problem inordinately affects poor learners and• Aggravated by poor pedagogy.• Major focus of PDOU to ensure improved effectiveness

of teacher development, recruitment and deployment processes.

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Ineffective District planning and programme implementation to decisively

impact on improving learning and teaching

Critical district plans and processes

• Improving performance in the system depends on district-wide effectiveness in improving performance. This requires:

– A collective commitment to creating conditions for success at all levels:

• District leaders must exercise their power and discharge their responsibilities in ensuring all schools in the district reach optimal functionality;

• adequate resourcing: teachers, texts and basic infrastructure and furniture

– Binding school-level and district-level targets for improved performance (linked to national targets);

– Implementation of clear annual plans to improve performance (DIPs and SIPs) – not just their development

– Shared tools to monitor and track progress; and

– Support for teachers and teaching

Quality at district level

• A detailed District Improvement Plan is key to an effective district, based on a clear understanding of national and provincial priorities, strategies and targets – and the role and power of districts to realise these;

• The DIP must be available for implementation in January of each year (not happening in these struggling districts0 based on

– An understanding of the district’s learner performance in ANA, NSC – and how they are distributed across the district;

– An understanding of curriculum expectations per grade/per subject; teacher availability, capacity and practices in the various subjects and schools; school functionality including school attendance and time on task ;

– An understanding of availability as well as leadership and management capacity of principals and school management teams in schools in the district.

School Improvement Plans

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• The School Improvement Plan is at the core of improving learner outcomes at school level in any given year.

• The WSE policy identifies key areas around which the school should set targets and seek to improve but less than 4% of underperforming schools (below 30%) in the 15 districts could produce SIPs by end of April.

• A Learner Performance Improvement Plan is mandatory for underperforming schools and should

– Be based on an objective analysis of school/phase/subject and grade performance of the previous year;

– Developed with involvement and owned by the SGB and broader school community;

– Set clear targets for learning improvement and as well as school attendance targets;

– Have school-level plans to measure curriculum coverage as well as a foolproof LTSM provisioning plan;

– Be reported on to the HOD and SGB by June of the year of implementation to monitor progress and intervene should this be necessary.

Infrastructure

• Infrastructure challenges persist in the system exacerbated by– Increased participation across the system;

– Poor curriculum choices and support to schools;

– New curriculum choices and

– Inadequate maintenance of existing buildings

Conclusion

• The PDOU’s has helped the DBE and provinces

– Understand what is happening (or not happening) in the districts and schools around the identified key areas with regards to understanding and implementation of policy and programmes;

– Understand reasons for challenges in implementation and

– Assist in facilitating unblocking these blockages;

• Tools to monitor and support implementation have been developed within the DBE and the PDOU is working on the ground to ensure their utilisation;

• However effective monitoring, enforcement and ensuring consequences for failure to comply remains a challenge and the PDOU’ active work in districts and schools should help ensure that the system understands better the challenges to effective monitoring in the system .

• This is an area that the DBE is also strengthening through institutionalised meetings with Districts, led by the Minister, and through HEDCOM and CEM.

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THANK YOU

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