Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma is to meet school principals to share government's vision on the revival of the country's education system.
"We want our teachers, learners and parents to work with government to turn our schools into thriving centres of excellence," President Zuma said in his State of the Nation Address on Wednesday.
The President said education will be a key priority for the next five years, adding that the Early Childhood Development programme will be stepped up, with the aim of ensuring universal access to Grade R.
Education is among the key priorities the government will focus on in the next five years.
The education spending has grown by 14 percent a year for the past three years and accounts for R140.4 billion in the spending plans of provinces and national government for 2008/09.
Government's key priorities in education include extending the no-fee school policy to 60 percent of schools from the current 40 percent, expanding the school nutrition programme, reducing average class sizes in schools, serving lower income communities and increasing expenditure on school buildings.
In an attempt to address the issue of pupils' drop out, President Zuma said the government was also looking at innovative measures to bring back into the system pupils who dropped out of school and provide support.
"The target is to increase enrolment rates in secondary schools to 95 percent by 2014.
"We will increase our efforts to encourage all pupils to complete their secondary education," he said.
He also noted that to improve school management, formal training will be a pre-condition for promoting teachers to become principals or heads of department.
He further reiterated government's non-negotiable policy for teachers and learners to be at school on time.
"Teacher should be in school, in class, on time, teaching, with no neglect of duty and no abuse of pupils! The children should be in class, on time, learning, be respectful of their teachers and each other, and do their homework," he said.
On the issue of teachers who sexually harass and abuse children, the President warned that government will take very serious and decisive action against any teachers who abuse their authority and power by entering into sexual relationships with children.
"We will ensure that the Guidelines on Sexual Harassment and Violence in public schools are widely disseminated and that learners and teachers are familiar with and observe them," he said.
