Ministers,

Deputy Ministers,

CEO’s of various companies and Representatives of Labour,

NECT Trustees,

Ladies and Gentlemen

Let me extend a warm welcome to all of you.
 
We have been brought together by a common objective of improving the quality of education for our children.
 
As stated in the State of the Nation Address this year, education is a ladder out of poverty for millions of our people.
 
A lot has been achieved in education in a short period of time. We can count the increase in enrolments to an improvement in matric passes and annual national assessments results, and the provision of support as no-fee schools or nutrition in schools.
 
We have built hundreds of state of the art schools to enable our children to be taught in a decent learning environment.
 
We are making steady progress. But we have to do more. We have to improve the quality of matric passes. We have to invest more substantially in maths and science teaching. We need to train more teachers including principals so that they can teach and manage schools better.
 
We also need to continue building schools. Our Accelerated Schools Delivery Initiative is going well.
 
We are pleased that the business community is also contributing to this campaign by building state of the art schools in some communities.
 
We have to ensure that more students reach tertiary institutions and are able to enrol for scarce skills that will assist in developing the economy.
 
It is within this context that we meet today. We have an opportunity to collectively change the landscape of basic education in this country.
 
As a country, progress has been substantial and our history provides many examples of South Africans coming together to achieve amazing things.  These include our democratic transition, our Constitution as well as regular and credible elections.
 
We still have a lot to do if we are to move towards the inclusive and just society envisaged in our Constitution by 2030. Fortunately the challenges that confront us are not insurmountable.
 
The National Development Plan that guides us all is about bringing about transformation. It is about building confidence and trust, about growing the economy and expanding opportunities. This requires an investment in education.
 
We are therefore very excited that the National Education Collaboration Trust is up and running and that it hit the ground running from day one after it was launched.
 
Commitment from business mainly through Business Leadership SA (BLSA) is most welcome.
 
We are pleased as well that teacher unions have pronounced their support to the Trust and have been drawn into the district structures set up to provide programme oversight and play a role in social mobilisation programme. It is significant that two union members from SADTU and NAPTOSA serve as trustees.
 
I commend the work done so far.
 
I am certain that more corporate players are going to join us as we push back the frontiers of apartheid education.
 
Indeed Together we will Move South Africa Forward.
 
I thank you.