hools for the Deaf: DEAFSA;

DBE; UMALUSI; Principals

Organisation roundtable
Basic Education
12 September 2018
Chairperson: Ms N Gina (ANC)
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Meeting Summary
This was a roundtable meeting where stakeholders in deaf
education were given a chance to express their grievances
and achievements with regard to deaf education in South
Africa. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) attended in
order to report on its involvement in the process thus far.
DeafSA said education for deaf learners in South Africa had
not been designed specifically to meet the educational,
linguistic, cultural, social and cognitive needs of the
individual student. Deaf and hard-of-hearing learners did not
enjoy the right to a quality education. The content and
academic levels were not the same as for hearing children.
The current situation did not address the students´
individual differences and needs.
It expressed concern about the lack of focus on early
childhood development for deaf children, the implementation
of sign language as an official academic language without
the necessary learner/teacher support material, and the fact
that the majority of educators who taught deaf learners did
not understand South African Sign Language (SASL). It also
requested that teaching assistants who understood SASL
should be given bursaries to become qualified teachers.
They asserted that there should be full inclusion for deaf
learners, which meant a totally supportive and student-
centred environment, as this would allow them to develop
full educational, social and emotional potential. They also
stated that the curriculum should provide the opportunity for
students to learn in and study both their local/national sign
language, and the local written language, as academic
subjects.
The DBE said all learner/teacher support material was
ordered by the provinces. A lot had in fact been done for the
improvement of deaf education. Among other things,
teachers had been trained and resources had been provided
for the learners that needed them. The DBE further assured
the Committee that it had been working with DeafSA and
would continue to strengthen that relationship.
Seven provinces reported on the status of their education
departments in catering for the needs of deaf learners.
Umalusi also updated the Committee on the quality
assurance of the upcoming examinations.
The Chairperson suggested that this would be the first of
many meetings of this nature to occur in the future. She
stressed that the Committee had planned other meetings to
ensure inclusive education for all South African learners. It
firmly believed that the doors of learning should be open to
all, and would therefore continue to monitor the working
relationship between the DBE and DeafSA. Education was a
societal matter, so all stakeholders should work together to
ensure quality education for all learners.
Meeting report
The Chairperson noted apologies from the Minister, Ms
Angie Motshega, and the Deputy Minister, Enver Surty, and
welcomed everyone to the meeting. She drew attention to
the fact that for the first time in the history of South Africa,
deaf learners would be writing examinations. This was a
significant step taken by the DBE and had to be commended.
She also highlighted, however, that there was still a lot of
discontent withe the process, because there were many
practicalities that still made it hard for learners to have
access to quality teaching. There were still problems with
methods of teaching that were employed by the schools that
offered sign language.
The reason for this meeting, which was the first of its kind,
was to find out what the government could do in order to
make sure that education was accommodative of everyone.
Also, because there were different stakeholders present at
the meeting, they could all state what they would like to be
done in the future. The DBE would also be given an
opportunity to make a presentation on what they had
managed to do up to the present. They would not be
responding to the grievances that would be raised during the
meeting, but would simply be explaining and putting into
context what they had done thus far. The discussion would
be picked up from there. The provinces would also be asked
questions to see what they had done individually in
preparation for the upcoming national examinations.
Umalusi was also at the meeting to bring clarity on the
quality assurance of the upcoming examinations. They had
done research into these kinds of matters, and would be
presenting information on what had been done and what
should be done for the upcoming examinations.
DeafSA: Presentation on deaf education
Mr Bruno Druchen, National Director: DeafSA, Mr François
Deysel, National Coordinator, and Ms Odette Swift, Director,
all spoke interchangeably throughout the presentation.
They said DeafSA had been founded in 1929. In 1995, the
former South African National Council for the Deaf (SANDC)
had been transformed into a new organisation that was
democratically elected. DeafSA was represented in all nine
provinces, with 19 offices across the country. The mission of
the organisation was to preserve, protect and promote the
civil, human and linguistic rights for the deaf in South Africa.
The organisation was training deaf social auxiliary workers
and South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreters. The
literacy and numeracy rates for deaf learners had
historically been low. Some of the reason for this was
because schools for the deaf often discouraged deaf
learners from being part of a dynamic academic
environment, because they believed that students would
achieve sub-standard results. The implementation of the
curriculum was subjective and dependent on what resources
and skills were available for a deaf child at the discretion of
the schools. DeafSA believed that the provision of necessary
and adequate support to deaf learners to enable them to
actively participate on an equal basis with their peers,
should be enhanced and be consistent. A grave concern for
DeafSA was that currently in South Africa there were
fragmented educational structures for deaf education --
there was no unity in deaf education.
Research studies regarding educational development and
language acquisition of deaf children suggested that:
• deaf students learn best through visual modalities and
depend on sign language;
• deaf children of deaf adults generally had a head start in
language acquisition, communication development and
educational prowess, and they do well later in life as
employees, citizens and leaders;
• programmes utilising bilingual or multilingual approaches
and employing qualified professionals provide deaf
children with a strong language base;
• deaf children who were in school were often in
programmes that did not meet their needs
 educationally, socially or socially; and
• early educational intervention, bilingual/multilingual
programmes, professionals and role models enable deaf
learners to achieve full intellectual, social and
emotional development.
Full inclusion for deaf learners meant a totally supportive
and student-centred environment. This permitted the
learners to develop their full educational, social and
emotional potential. DeafSA wanted to ensure that
educational rights of learners were fulfilled, and therefore
reaffirmed its position that all deaf people, including deaf
children, had the right to full access to quality education
through visual modes, including indigenous sign language
environments and educational intervention strategies and
programmes in partnership with families, deaf adults and
professionals. It called upon the government to ensure full
and equal access to educational success for deaf learners
based on regular education goals, standards and curricula,
and that such curricula should provide the opportunity for
students to learn and study in both their local/national sign
language and the local written language as academic
subjects.
Firstly, Article 24 of the European Union Agency for
Fundamental Rights recognises the right to education of
persons with disabilities. With a view to realising this right
without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity,
states should ensure an inclusive education system at all
levels and lifelong learning directed to:
• The full development of human potential and sense of
dignity and self-worth, and the strengthening of respect
for human rights, fundamental freedoms and human
diversity;
• The development by persons with disabilities of their
personality, talents and creativity, as well as their
 mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential;
and
• Enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively
in a free society.
Secondly, in realising this right, states must ensure that
persons with disabilities were not excluded from the general
education system on the basis of disability, and that
children with disabilities were not excluded from free and
compulsory primary education, or from secondary education,
on the basis of disability. Persons with disabilities could
access an inclusive, quality and free primary education and
secondary education on an equal basis with others in the
communities in which they lived. Reasonable
accommodation of the individual’s requirements would be
provided, and they would receive the support required,
within the general education system, to facilitate their
effective education. Effective individualized support
measures would be provided in environments that
maximised academic and social development, consistent
with the goal of full inclusion
As for all learners, deaf children had the same right to
education and full access to quality education. Section 29 of
the South African Constitution states that everyone has the
right to a basic education, including adult basic education
and further education which the state, through reasonable
measures, must progressively make available and
accessible. Like all children, deaf children must have access
to quality education - their needs and human, linguistic and
educational rights, were respected and supported by
educational authorities, in full compliance with international
policy statements, national legislation and national
curricula. It must be understood that deaf children were
born with the same capabilities for learning language as all
children. They could and should reach their full potential
with appropriate visual, quality educational programmes and
support.
Deaf education in South Africa had not been designed
specifically to meet the educational, linguistic, cultural,
social and cognitive needs of the individual student. Deaf
and hard-of-hearing learners did not enjoy the right to a
quality education. The content and academic levels were
not the same as for hearing children. The current situation
did not address the students´ individual differences and
needs. DeafSA had visited a School for the Deaf in the
Northern Cape 2015 and the following concerns had been
brought to the attention of the Department -- but no action
was taken:
• No equipment at the school for implementation of a SASL
Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS);
• Lack of a SASL CAPS subject advisor made implementation
very difficult, as there was no expert to refer questions
to;
• The school shared a hostel with another school far from
Retlameleng, and there was very limited space;
• Long waiting lists, as the school was the only one catering
for the deaf in a geographically large province, and all
those waiting required hostel placement too.
At the time of the meeting, there were 21 learners waiting
for placement. Subject choice was very limited and was
further exacerbated by a lack of teachers in the province
overall, let alone specialist teachers. Teacher burnout and
frustration levels were high, as they were not trained to
teach the deaf, and had to teach both blind and deaf
learners as the school had only one post for matric Maths Lit
or English, for example. Learners who stayed near the
school made use of public transport, as the school combis
were old and too expensive to repair. Some parents refused
to pay for public transport, so learners were not coming to
school. Classes were not full, and learners frequently did not
do homework, as parents did not enforce discipline or know
how to sign to them to explain what to do. Although
teachers had been on the SASL training offered by the Wits
Language School, many of the teachers still did not have the
necessary SASL skills to teach advanced subject content,
and when there was training for teachers and assistants, the
North West Department of Education frequently did not
provide interpreters, so teachers landed up interpreting for
their colleagues. There needed to be an intervention at
Retlameleng in order to motivate and upskill teachers to
understand the learning needs of deaf learners and to
improve SASL skills. One of the overarching consequences
was that deaf learners were not getting enough distinctions.
Early identification and intervention had not improved
outcomes for most children who were deaf and hard of
hearing.  A 2014 policy statement on early childhood
programmes by DeafSA had set forth recommendations for
increasing inclusion of deaf and hard of hearing infants,
toddlers and pre-school children, from birth up to age seven,
in high quality early childhood programmes. The current
situation was that deaf children were excluded from local
programmes providing language-rich environments that were
fully accessible to young children who were deaf or hard of
hearing. There were no programmes that were culturally
appropriate for the diverse community of SASL users. It was
known, for example, that there were no family-centred
intervention results with better outcomes, and that families
needed to be included as collaborative partners.
DeafSA recognised that SASL was the backbone of South
African deaf culture. It valued the acquisition, usage and
preservation of SASL, and was a recognised leader in
promoting the acquisition, learning, teaching, and
interpreting of SASL. DeafSA had been established in part to
promote and preserve SASL as a legitimate language and an
optimal educational tool for deaf children and adults in
South Africa, and would not accept that American or British
sign language should be used as teaching materials in South
Africa. Deaf education could not work until deaf people were
an integral part of the system at all levels. They would “Take
Back Deaf Education!”
The Chairperson did a short summary of the presentation,
highlighting that their main contention was the need for the
involvement of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in
the the process when it came to the implementation of SASL
CAPS. She also wanted to highlight that deaf learners were
not mentally challenged, and whenever there was
consideration of these policies, this should be remembered.
She called on the DBE to make its presentation, outlining
the processes that had been followed, and what progress
had been made in the provinces. This would not be the last
meeting of its kind -- it was only the beginning. She
commented that this kind of meeting was important for the
Committee as it played its oversight role, because rarely
was there an opportunity like this where many stake holders
were available to account and ask questions on relevant
matters.
Progress in implementing SASL CAPS  
Mr Hubert Mweli, Director-General: Department of Basic
Education, said he first needed to indicate that the DBE was
working close with DeafSA. However, it was quite apparent
that the working relationship had not been not been smooth,
or at least had not been a meaningful one. He wanted to
acknowledge that the task at hand was quite difficult, and
he would not pretend to have all the answers. The DBE
depended on external expertise on the management of these
kinds of programmes. Although he would not be giving a
rebuttal, it was important to note that they would state facts
that would directly address some of the problems that
DeafSA had had with the DBE. He added that the
relationship between DeafSA and the DBE was regulated by
law -- schedule four stated how the DBE ought to relate with
the various stakeholders. Finally, he wanted to humbly
appeal that when one was writing a letter to the DBE, it
should be written to the administrator of the Department.
Most of what DeafSA had been saying had been mainly a
reference to him. They should be sending important letters
directly to the administrator so that they could be passed
through the right channels and dealt with accordingly. In the
future, he wanted to be involved from the beginning of
projects.
He also made an apology to the Committee, as he would
have to be excused so that he could attend a meeting with
the Minister. The DBE’s presentation would be done by other
delegates from the Department.
Dr Moses Simelane, Director, National Department of Basic
Education (DBE) said the purpose of the presentation was to
brief the Committee on the progress of the CAPS. The
development of the SASL CAPS had followed as a response
to a court case involving Springate and Others v the Minister
of Basic Education and Others in the Pietermaritzburg High
Court back in 2009. Later, the Council of Education Ministers
(CEM) had approved the SASL CAPS to policy, as well as its
listing with other subjects in the national curriculum
statement for Grades R-12 on 3 July 2014. The CEM had
granted a further approval for an amendment of all related
polices and regulations.
The year 2014 had been set aside specifically for preparing
the system for the implementation of the SASL CAPS.
Preparations had included the development of materials for
the foundation phase and Grade Nine, leading to the
development of the national catalogue, the orientation of
language subject advisors, as well as the training of
teachers and deaf teaching assistants. The DBE had
developed a costed implementation plan that spanned from
2014 through 2017, and the plan had been approved by the
Heads of Education Departments Committee (HEDCOM) in
August 2014. The SASL CAPS was approved as policy in
2015 – there were 159 and 168 teachers teaching in the
foundation phase and Grade Nine respectively. There were
79 deaf teaching assistants that had been appointed to
assist with the implementation of the curriculum. The
system was thus being prepared for the first cohort of Grade
12 deaf learners who would be writing the 2018 National
Senior Certificate (NSC).
There were 17 schools for that offered matric. From these,
589 learners from ten of the 17 schools would be writing
their NSC examination in SASL home language in 2018.
Winter school classes had been organised to support and
prepare these learners for writing the 2018 NSC
examinations. The curriculum support programme had
established a support team to develop teacher guides and
supporting documents, and the first meeting was conducted
on 20 and 21 June 2018. The extra tuition support planned
was to have three subjects in SASL home language,
Mathematical Literacy and English First Additional Language
(EFAL), to support teachers. Ten hours of teaching were
available for each subject, and the focus of the lesson plans
had been on challenging content.
When it came to learning and teaching materials, a national
catalogue for Grades Four – twelve had been released in
January this year. Circular S1 of 2018 was on the prescribed
SASL literature texts for the Further Education and Training
(FET) phase. All the schools had procured SASL texts from
the national catalogue. Guidelines for the analysis of poems
and short stories had been provided to all schools. For the
teachers, teacher training had been conducted – five-day
training for CAPS SASL Home language -- between 2016 and
2017. Assessment and literature training had been held in
September 2017 and a training session for home language
advisors was held in February 2017. Dr Simelane said that
this had included any material that DeafSA deemed
appropriate for the curriculum. This underscored the fact
that there had been communication with DeafSA, and
perhaps there needed to be a better understanding of the
rules of engagements between the two, as this would
probably make this relationship function better.
Deaf stake holders and SASL linguists had been involved in
the development of the SASL CAPS. One of these stake
holders was Mr L Magongwa, who was deaf and former
National Chairperson of DeafSA, who had participated in the
rollout. In addition, deaf individuals were included in the
Curriculum Management Team (CMT) which had been
established by the Minister to oversee the development of
the curriculum, while deaf individuals had also formed part
of the National Training Team (NTT). Highly qualified
individuals, hearing and deaf, were involved in training
teachers in the SASL CAPS. These had included Dr P Akach,
former CMT member and Department Head and lecturer in
SASL from the University of Free State; Mr Magongwa,
lecturer of SASL at Wits, former member of the CMT who
was deaf; Prof C Storbeck, former CMT member from Wits,
highly qualified in linguistics and literature, and Ms A
Swannack, former member of the writing team from Wits
Language School, who was deaf, among others.
As support for teachers, 250 foundation phase and Grade
Nine teachers and deaf teaching assistants were trained in
October 2014. The training was conducted over a two-week
period instead of one, as had been the case in previous
training sessions. 176 teachers and deaf teaching assistants
for intermediate phase and Grades Nine and Ten had been
trained in 2015/16 for implementation in 2016. Guidance was
provided to provincial education departments to provide
additional training for their teachers and deaf teaching
assistants in SASL content. Provincial Education
Departments (PEDs) had enrolled other teachers in schools
for the deaf for accredited SASL courses at universities, and
the number of teachers was growing. 24 home language
subject advisors had been orientated for the SASL
foundation phase and Grade Nine.
Although there had been this progress, SASL was a new
subject and so teachers had not specialised prior to
implementation from 2015. The utilisation of sign language
interpreters did not only benefit hearing teachers, deaf
teachers did too, in that interpretation went both ways. It
also provided for the equalisation of an opportunity to
participate in the training of deaf teachers and deaf
teaching assistants.
Regarding the job description for deaf teaching assistants,
Dr Simelane said it was necessary to ensure that there were
clear roles and responsibilities to ensure that there was no
confusion. As a result, the DBE had drafted a job description
for deaf teaching assistants to guide PED’s human resource
(HR) planning in creating such posts. The DBE had presented
the job description during the orientation of school
management teams into the SASL CAPS at a national event
in February 2014. The job description had also been
presented at all national CAPS training from 2014 to 2017.
Challenges still remained, however, with the supply of deaf
teachers in the system. The sluggish growth in the number
of qualified deaf teachers was attributable to the completion
rates for deaf learners and the negligible number that had
been entering university. For many years, South Africa had
reported only 30 deaf graduates from university due to the
already mentioned reasons. From the DBE’s perspective, it
was envisaged that with the introduction of the SASL CAPS,
the situation would be turned around in the near future.
Regarding the performance of deaf learners, research placed
a premium on language in education, more so on home
language laying a solid foundation. Regrettably though, the
absence of official home language and the language of
learning and teaching for deaf learners had impacted them
negatively, especially on the quality of education. This had
led to poor completion rates over the years. DeafSA had
occasionally shared findings from monitoring schools for the
deaf, which the DBE had used with universities to
strengthen teachers’ competence and fluency in sign
language.
Representation of people living with disabilities in school
governance was provided for in the South African Schools
Act of 1996. The DBE was monitoring the implementation of
this provision, to ensure that deaf people were able to
participate actively in governance structures. For the future,
the DBE planned to strengthen its efforts to improve the
recruitment of deaf learners into the teaching profession.
The DBE sector would engage the Department of Higher
Education and Training (DHET) on the quality of the SASL
training courses that were offered by universities. The
Department would engage civil society organisations on the
proposed round table discussion on the implementation of
the SASL CAPS.
Dr Simelane called on the Committee to discuss the
progress report on the implementation of the SASL CAPS
Grades R – 12, and provide guidance on how the
implementation could be improved.
After the DBE presented, the Chairperson commented on
some of the sentiments shared by DeafSA in their
presentation. She said she was uneasy about what had been
said regarding taking back their education. Education was a
responsibility of the government, and although this was an
effort by everyone, the government still played an essential
part in creating policies that were in the best interest of
everyone, and for this to happen they had to work together.
For DeafSA to say they wanted to take back their education,
was not the way forward.
Discussion
Mr A Botes (ANC) expressed how Plato had said that human
conduct originated from three primary sources, desire,
emotion and knowledge. He wanted to note that
Parliamentarians had the necessary desire -- their origin as
public representatives came from the people. Importantly
the presentation should be seen as a knowledge stream. He
was raising this because there had been a number of
concerns regarding the quality of the curriculum. At some
point, there had to be a meeting to look at the content of
SASL CAPS. What was being experienced in normal public
schools was the shrinking of the number of students
enrolled. There had been a large number of students who
had gone missing, and here they were dealing with a special
group of people. There had to be some kind of an
investigation into the disappearance of students. As a
problem that was already affecting the general schooling
system, it had to be dealt with while there were still
considerations about the SASL CAPS because if not, the
problem could worsen and add a further burden on to the
already burdened DBE.
He said there were provinces that did not have a sign
language enrolment. It was important to move as a
Committee to take oversight action on the matter of
Retlameleng School, as it could not be that a matter that
had been raised three years ago was still a problem today,
without any improvements.
Referring to early childhood development (ECD), he said the
ECD component that was located within the Department of
Social Development should be integrated within the overall
education framework of the DBE. There needed to be a
debate between the Committee and that of Social
Development. He also enquired whether the DBE had a
platform where there was information available on special
knowledge groups -- a platform where organisations like
DeafSA could pledge or transfer information of some sort.
This was important for monitoring and evaluation purposes.
He was saying this because the DHET had organisations like
the South African Quality Authority (SAQA) and the Council
for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and
Training, Umalusi that provided support to the Minister, and
he wanted to find out if the DBE had any such bodies in
existence. This was because he was sensing a level of
frustration because did not seem like there was any direct
body that dealt with grievances that might be had against
the DBE, unlike those who were helpful for the DHET.
Ms H Boshoff (DA) said that reading through the
presentations left her feeling very concerned. She had
always felt that deaf education had always been in a
shambles in South Africa, and it seems that talks were
always being done in presentations, but there was never
really any actual implementation of these ideas. There were
43 schools for the deaf, but there was no database of all the
hearing impaired persons in the country to account for them.
She would like to know if there was in fact a database
between the Department of Health, the Department of Social
Development and the DBE that could be used to account for
these learners, so that attention could be given to them
quickly.
Teachers were not adequately trained for the level of
teaching that they did in these schools. With regard to ECD,
she wanted to know about the possibility of reaching out to
the private sector with DeafSA so that they could adopt a
school. This was particularly important, because the
equipment required for teaching was expensive, and this
could help in alleviating problems of this nature. Regarding
subject advisors and district advisors, there should be a help
desk at the DBE where people could ask for help should they
need it. Now that provinces were implementing the SASL
CAPS, there were no monitoring mechanisms, so no one
knew how well or badly they were doing, because there was
no platform available to do that. Could there be a report on
the number of learners registered to write their exams under
the SASL CAPS, and what the pre-empted results were. How
many schools had been incorporated into the SASL CAPS?
What evacuation plans were in place for these schools --
what was going to happen in these schools should
something happen?, How long was the current waiting list of
the hearing impaired throughout the country it, and what
was the DBE planning to do about it until placement was
given to them?
Ms J Basson (ANC) said that after the two presentations she
was worried and was reminded of the memorial service for
former president Nelson Mandela and the kinds of mistakes
that were made by the sign language interpreter. She
wanted to know where the fault lay exactly, because the
DBE says they have been working together with DeafSA,
while DeafSA said they had not. DeafSA had also spoken
about the incompetence of staff members, while Dr
Simelane had said that the people employed by the DBE
were all well qualified. What problems did DeafSA have with
these people? She also wanted clarification about what was
happening in Retlameleng -- was it sharing a hostel with
another school because the school did not have space? Had
this been verified, or was this being said for “gatekeeping”
purposes to keep other learners out? On their oversight, the
Committee had they verified that there was no space at the
other school that they were supposed to be sharing space
with.
On the matter of coders, DeafSA had said there should not
be use of coders. Why were they not recommending the use
of coders, even though the DBE had been saying that coders
had been helpful in the training and teaching of teachers for
deaf schools. There also seemed to be a contradiction on
the preparedness of the DBE for the final examinations at
the of the year -- Dr Simelane was saying they were
prepared, whereas DeafSA was saying they were not. Why
were they saying this? She also noticed vast differences in
the statistics between the two presentations. Dr Simelane
had assured the Committee that his statistics were
qualified, so where did DeafSA get its numbers?  She had a
problem with a bar graph that DeafSA had presented, as
there was incongruence with their statistics.
Mr X Ngwezi (IFP) said DeafSA had indicated that the
learning and teaching materials were insufficient and
unsuitable, and that they might not be enough for the
number of learners registered. He would like to find out from
the Department if this was true, as they were the ones
prescribing the curriculum and would know. Dr Simelane had
noted the differences in the number participants who had
written exams in 2015/16, and wanted clarity on why there
were differences in the numbers. He also wanted to know
where this information was kept, because it seemed as
though the Department had access to information that was
not accessible to other bodies outside itself. He agreed with
DeafSA with regard to having a curriculum that started from
Early Childhood Development. the reason the mainstream
curriculum was standing was because it started from the
foundation phase.
He commended Dr Simelane’s commitment to this project
and highlighted the importance of working together, and
said he hoped that DeafSA would withdraw its statement of
wanting to keep matters to themselves because there were
many who did not understand sign language. It had to be
understood that those who did not understand depended on
researchers, which showed that this was inter-dependent,
where everyone needed to work together. If this was not
done, there was a of robbing learners of an opportunity to be
part of a comprehensive curriculum. Finally, he wanted to
highlight that the Committee had no intention of sabotaging
the progress of learners. During the time he had been on the
Committee, he had seen that whenever there had been a
problem, the Committee had made it a point to make sure
that it was attended to. He was mentioning this because
there seems to be a lot blame going on – there had to be a
movement past this. They had to move quickly towards
solutions.
Ms N Tarabella-Marchesi (DA) said that for the first time she
was getting the big picture -- the array of challenges facing
deaf education in South Africa -- and it was worrying
because she thought if she were deaf she would not know
where to go. This was important because it did not only
affect learners at school, which the meeting was about, but
also many children who were born or still to be born, who
happened to be deaf. What kind of interventions were
available for these children? She also said that she did not
know how the Department of Social Development fitted into
the picture, because their role was important in cases of
this nature. South Africa as a society still faced a stigma
around deaf children -- they were still seen not as having
just a hearing impairment alone, but also as having a mental
disability. This relationship would be important in combating
problems of this nature.
These presentations had highlighted that the DBE was
failing these children. It seemed as though the Department
had not prioritised their problems, and they were always set
on the periphery as an afterthought. She also wanted clarity
with the statistics. It had been reported that there were one
million deaf people in South Africa. How did DeafSA know
this, because when deaf children were born in the rural
areas they were not reported as deaf? The curriculum was
set to start from ECD up to the later grades – what role did
the Department of Social Development have in the
facilitation of this curriculum? This responsibility could not
lie only with the DBE, as it already had budgetary
constraints and other problems. Social Development had to
factor in to assist with the implementation.
Ms N Mokoto (ANC) said she had also been deeply disturbed
by what had been said, particularly looking at the nature of
the relationship between the two critical players. When the
Committee had decided that education was a societal issue,
the Minister had agreed that it was a non-negotiable matter
– building partnerships was one of the key priorities for the
Department. Perhaps because of poor communication one
found that these relationships did not flourish. The moment
partners took emotions out of the equation, then they could
work well – there was no need for partners to be adversarial
when working together, because everyone had a common
goal of delivering service for deaf learners. When there were
problems between partners, they did not affect Members of
the Committee of even the delegates, they affected people
in the ground. Historically, education in South Africa had not
always favoured deaf people -- in fact, it had not always
favoured people living with disability in general – but if
everyone would stop pointing fingers then there would be a
better chance of fixing these problems.
If she was chairing the meeting, she would ask everyone to
back to their places and think about what had been said and
their implications. They could then resume the meeting at a
later stage when everyone would have had time to think and
ask the right questions, because what had been said had
been a mouthful. She still believed that there was a need to
go back to the drawing board, and if need be there should be
a memorandum for a relationship between DeafSA and the
DBE to create a formal means of communication between
the two parties. They would not be stepping on each other’s
toes and interrupting progress in the process. The other
point that disturbed her was where DeafSA wanted to place
itself as a standalone organisation. It could not be correct
that hearing people should not be allowed to do things on
their behalf, even though they would be doing work for their
benefit.
Her first question was to Umalusi, as the organisation that
was responsible for oversight on quality assurance, as
maybe they could put everyone in context with what had
been said by the two parties and give an indication of their
findings on the preparedness of the DBE for the upcoming
examinations. What other programmes did DeafSA have,
other than education, because other people also wanted to
learn sign language? She had faced such a problem when
she worked for a municipal council, she would encounter
deaf people and could not understand what they wanted.
There were many other examples where a knowledge of sign
language would help. She also wanted clarity on the
numbers. DeafSA had said there were one million deaf
people in the country. but a while back when she was
serving in the Portfolio Committee on Communications, it
had been reported that there were 4.5 million deaf people in
South Africa. What happened to the other 3.5 million people?
The Chairperson said that Umalusi had submitted a report
that had also been challenged, and she wanted to give them
a chance to make a brief presentation on their findings. The
provinces also needed to make brief presentations on their
preparedness for the upcoming final examinations – this
should be done before Umalusi made their presentation. In
future, the Department of Social Development would be
present to account on the implementation of ECD
programmes. If this was not attended to, parents would end
up being given the responsibility for teaching, because these
under-trained teachers would refer the children back to their
parents because of their inability to teach them. The reason
the SASL CAPS had limited subject choices was primarily
because there was a limitation on the number of teachers
available to teach other subjects. This was something that
needed to be addressed so that learners could get exposure
to other subjects.
Mpumalanga delegation:
Mpumalanga was currently not offering matric education.
They had started last year with Grade Eight, and this year
they had a Grade Nine class, along with the newly enrolled
Grade Eights from this year. There were five schools that
provided education up to Grade Nne. Among others, the
problem that faced these schools was the unavailability of
subject advisors, but there were subject advisors for home
languages. In these schools, there around 22 teachers
available and about 10 deaf assistants. As a province, they
were planning on establishing a deaf school, but had been
having problems with this because it needed to be in town.
They had found a site in Mbombela that could potentially be
suitable for the building – the local municipality had
assigned them a site, and currently they were also
undergoing some environmental inspections. All the
necessary benchmarking had been done. In these schools,
they have been providing the necessary learning and
teaching materials, and since there was a national
catalogue they had been providing these to the relevant
schools.
Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) delegation:
KZN had one of the largest numbers of deaf schools in
comparison to other provinces. They had moved people who
were competent into these schoos. They had opened posts
that would not only help with the teaching of learners, but
also on the HR side so that they could also oversee the
schools. Posts for Chief Education Specialist and Deputy
Chief Education Specialist had been approved for
advertisement, and that of a subject advisor at a local level.
They had hired a programme coordinator who had 34 years
of experience to run the programme. In terms of the support
that was given to schools, all schools had deaf teaching
assistants – there were 66 of them that had been hired, and
of that number, 46 were deaf, this accounted for 70% of
them. FET teachers and teacher assistants had been trained
and workshopped. All schools had been supported with
recording material and sign text to make sure that
education was functional. Inclusive education had been
conducted to make sure that especially the schools that had
matric exams all had the necessary resources required.
There were even winter camps in October to make sure that
learners were prepared enough for the upcoming exams.
North West delegation:
There were two schools for the deaf in the province, none of
which offered matric. There was currently a task team that
had been appointed to look into ways of extending the
curriculum so that it also catered for matriculants. The
learners were in Grade Eight, and Nine level two was also
available. At present the province was busy with the
profiling of teachers to see who were the most qualified to
work in these schools. There were also plans to make sure
that there was computer course accreditation for the level
two courses. As of yesterday, learners had been moved to a
different building that was accommodative of deaf learners
-- the previous one had burned down. There had also been
strides in training teachers, subject advisors and deaf
teaching assistantd. The main problem was that because of
where the schools were located, the province was losing
teachers, because where they were situated was not
desirable for them.
The Chairperson wanted clarification regarding the
provinces that had schools that did not reach matric -- what
happened to those learners when they needed to complete
matric? She said this was something that could be
addressed at a later stage.
Free State Delegation:
There were two schools that were for the deaf and blind, at
which there were six learners who would be writing their
matric examinations at the end of this year. They had been
assisting learners, and in August they had run assessments
to better prepare them for finals. In their results they had
fared moderately. There were going to be spring classes to
give them further preparation exercise. In both these
schools, there had been a 100% pass rate, with 50% of these
passes being bachelors. As presented by the DBE, there
were training programmes to equip teachers, and they had
also been taken to a Western Cape-based organisation to
give them further necessary training. This had prepared
them so that when they were trained in CAPS, they could
easily adjust. The province now also had teaching assistants
for each phase, even for the FET phase. When it came to
resources, all six learners had laptops with the appropriate
software for their learning. There was also an MTN container
that had been donated, which all the learners aware of and
could utilise when they needed to in order to have an
understanding of the environment that they would be
working in.
Limpopo delegation:
In the province there were no grade 12 learners writing
exams in 2018. Two of them would be writing next year.
There was a computer training lab that would be used for
their training. There were posts that had been created -- five
of them, one secondary and four primary. There had been
problems in filling these posts because there had been
financial constraints and the need for approval from the
provincial treasury to fill all the scholastic programmes.
There were 40 teachers that had been trained on
communication, because most of them could not
communicate. They had also taken some teachers to Wits to
get a graduate diploma. This was all meant to equip
teachers better so that they could relay information properly
to students. They had also strengthened their relationships
with DeafSA. At the end of this month there would be a deaf
education summit, where they could fine tune all matters
relating to deaf education.
Gauteng delegation:
There were seven schools for the deaf in the province, four
of which had Grades from Eight to 12, with a fifth next year
also offering matric. There were twelve matric candidates
for this year. They were well resourced, with labs that were
available for teaching purposes. There had been preliminary
exams that had been organised by the province, and they
were still waiting for the results. The exams were
moderated by Umalusi. There were teaching assistant
courses, but in reality they could not be in classes, so right
now the province was busy liaising with information systems
and job evaluation officials to achieve a distinction between
normal class assistants and deaf teaching assistants. They
had also undergone a short learning programme that would
allow teachers to become competent in the language. The
understand was that immersion in the language was what
was going to help better understand the language, and that
what had been done was not nearly enough, but the strides
that had been taken were seen as a step forward in making
this a reality. From the Gauteng Education Department and
the Literature, Language and Media Unit, whatever training
that teachers got was the same as the kind that teaching
assistants got. In addition to that, there was a subject
support meeting, because they realised that expertise lay
within the schools for the deaf. They meet every two
months, where challenges are discussed and solutions are
suggested. Where it was found that there is no expertise to
deal with certain problems, then the Department would
liaise with other stakeholders like the Wits Education
Department for the Deaf, to assist with the problem at hand.
The Department also had a good working relationship with
the Education, Training and Development Practices Sector
Education and Training Authority (ETDP SETA), and training
was through them. One of the next programmes was to get
some of the teachers to get a Grade R certificate through
them.
Western Cape Delegation:
In terms of the readiness for Grade 12 exams, the province
had had mock exams the previous month (August), which
had gone very well. All the learners had been provided with
laptops and there also had to be a booth for the writing of
the exams. The province said it envisaged that over the next
couple of the years there would be an increase in the
number of learners writing their matric examination. This
was because in 2011 there had been deaf task team which
included stake holders like DeafSA, and there had been an
in-depth analysis of the problem in the province, looking at
the problem in the frame of the historical backlog caused by
apartheid. Training had been done, and teachers and
teaching assistants had been sent to a sign language
accredited institution. At first, that had been the University
of the Free State, but now it was also at Stellenbosch
University, so training capacity was being improved. The
province also welcomed any criticism that came from any
stakeholder regarding the conduct or competence of a
teacher so that they could be dealt with. In the past three
years, there had been meetings with the Director of
Inclusive Education, and relationships had been created
with other departments. At this point, there might be a need
for a coordinating committee to oversee what everyone was
doing, especially since there were so many stake holders
involved.
The Chairperson thanked the presenters, and said she would
like this meeting to happen again next year so that everyone
could get a sense of what had been done to further improve
deaf education in South Africa. Although it would not be the
same Members of the Committee next year, this was
something that should be included in the legacy report, so
that this continued.
 
Umalusi: DBE’s readiness for coming examinations
Ms Mary-Louise Madalane, Senior Manager: Quality
Assurance and Assessment, Umalusi, said Umalusi was
currently evaluating the DBE’s state of readiness for the
coming examinations. This process included the different
stages of the examination cycle, right from the registration
of the candidate to the certification of the candidate. In
addition, Umalusi evaluated the quality assurance
processes, and had appointed external moderators and hired
external interpreters for the exams. The organisation had
also been in contact with DeafSA with regard to appointing
monitors that understood the sector and the community.
The DBE had decided to have a fully-fledged preparatory
exam, and these had been qualified as standard and
approved for all the papers of the exams. The qualifying of
question papers for the upcoming exams in November was
also in process. The organisation was still waiting for the
papers to be done by the DBE.
From across the provinces the organisation saw areas of
concern and areas of good practice. Good practice was
found in centres that held exams where most procedures
were followed as guided. A concern was that in some
school’s time allocations for exams, they had applied for an
extra time allocation for deaf students. It had been observed
that the students whose schools did not apply for extra time
had difficulty finishing their papers. This had been one of the
reasons for having preparatory exams, to see whether time
allocation was correct.
The other concern was that of the training of invigilators --
not all schools had trained their invigilators in time for the
exams. In some provinces there also issues of preparatory
material not being available in time. The supply of the CD’s
and the venues where papers were supposed to be kept, had
not been managed well. Another problem was with regards
to literature exams -- the poems that were done had not
been included in one of the schools.
Umalusi was also involved in the marking, and set the
marking guidelines and the process of verification of the
marking. Generally, the marking was seen to be good and
the mark variance was good, which was a good indication.
Going forward, Umalusi would be involved mainly in the
verification of the exams, and the standardisation and
verification of the marking process.
Umalusi was committed to the improvement of deaf
education and would do as much as it could, although its
engagement was limited legally.
The Chairperson said she hoped that these challenges had
been shared with the DBE.
DeafSA’s response
Mr Druchen wanted to remind the Committee that the
DeafSA mandate had been given by the people of South
Africa, and what they wanted was reflected in the matters
that the organisation saw as important.
In the case of the deaf teaching assistants, what had been
reflected in the presentation was based on what they said,
as the organisation got regular feedback from them every
month. DeafSA worked with hearing people. An example of
this would be Mr Deysel, who worked for the organisation,
and the organisation had always worked with experts.
However, a hearing person could not represent the deaf
community the same as a deaf person -- it was just not
acceptable. Deaf people’s culture was expressed with sign
language. Sign language was their right. The Portfolio
Committee had asked what a “coder” was. He would throw a
question back at the Committee -- would they allow a person
with a hearing disability to be an expert for hearing people?
The answer would be no. So, a “coder” was a child of deaf
parents who can hear. An example was his son, Antonio -- he
did not socialise with the deaf community, but grew up in a
deaf family, so he was a coder. That did not mean he was a
representative of the deaf community -- deaf people
represented the deaf community.
He said many people used the wrong terms. Deaf people
were not mute -- they used South African sign language. Mite
was a wrong terminology, and to have the Portfolio
Committee using that term was disheartening. The other
matter was one of statistics. It was known that many of the
statistics that were used were taken from Stats SA, an
organisation that worked, and one would have to ask them
about the variance in numbers.  
He also wanted to bring it to the attention of the Committee
that the reason for what was being said was because people
were feeling left out. They wanted to be part of school
governing bodies, they wanted to be included in the
decision-making. DeafSA was not blaming anyone, but
simply outlining the concern of the people on the ground.
The frustration was about not being able to voice their
concerns. DeafSA had a good working relationship with Dr
Simelane. There might have disagreements in the pasts, but
the concern had always been one of making sure that deaf
people in South Africa were catered for.
The Chairperson expressed that the Committee was open
and happy to have the meeting. She wanted to stress that
the Committee was not challenging what had been
presented by DeafSA. She apologised for anything that had
been said that had hurtful outcomes. This was not the
intension of the Committee.
Mr Deysel replied to the concerns regarding other projects
that they were running. He pointed out that DeafSA was an
organisation that had approximately 70 staff members, with
19 offices across South Africa. Its main purposes involved
social development programmes the organisation worked on
with social workers, and it had job placement offices that
assisted deaf people in getting jobs. This was where the
organisation picked up problems, and that was when it was
seen that the work that had been said and done by the DBE
was not enough, and certainly did not come close to what
had been done for hearing people. There were problems
when people with hearing who had been taught by deaf
people, got opportunities that otherwise should have been
given to deaf people. It was when people with hearing got
jobs relating to deaf people within the Education
Department, which was extremely problematic because this
meant that even they became a barrier to opportunities for
people who actually deserved and were well qualified for
these positions.
On the question of qualified people listed by Dr Simelane,
not all of those hearing experts were good with deaf
education. One person on that list, Mr Magongwa, had been
part of the Curriculum Management team, and the Minister
had said that the implementation process must be overseen
by this team. Dr Simelane had ordered that the team be
dissolved, and that was why he was not there anymore as a
representative from DeafSA.
Ms Swift wanted to respond to two of the matters that had
been raised. Regarding the differences in the statistics, she
said she had not seen those statistics before, but she could
assure the Committee that she would not have released
those results unless she was sure of all the responses from
the schools. She also thought the differences could also be
because the DBE results were for all deaf learners, whereas
DeafSA had focused on all the schools that had an FET
phase, and which of those wrote exams.
The other matter was on limited subject choices and why
this occurred. This was because of the post provision, and
the proportion between learners in high schools and learners
in primary schools. There tended to be more learners in
primary schools than in high schools. This meant that there
were fewer teachers in high schools, which would in turn
mean that there were fewer subject choices available
because of the limited number of teachers available. In
addition to this, some schools removed subjects that they
deemed too difficult for learners -- for example, accounting
and physics were not offered, and maths was offered at only
four schools. This limited the choices that would give them
a realistic opportunity after high school. This was perhaps
because of the level of training that teachers had – perhaps
they did not have the kind of training that would allow them
to convey complicated subject topics to deaf learners.
Mr Deysel said one could say there was hearing-based
“colonialism” happening with deaf education, because there
was no respect for the language and the culture. It was
known that if one wants to get the attention of a deaf
person, one should tap them lightly on the shoulder. At
Noluthando school for the deaf, a teacher had slapped a
child twice on the head to get his attention.
The Chairperson warned about some of the things that were
being said. Teachers should not be all painted with the same
brush, because these kinds of situations also occurred in
hearing schools. The danger of this narrative was that it
would be said that all hearing teachers shared these
sentiments towards deaf learners, and that was not the
case. There would not be any movement forward if there
was that kind of dialogue and belief between hearing and
deaf people.
Ms Mokoto highlighted that the meeting was running late,
Parliament was about to have its sitting. However, she also
wanted to highlight how the relationship between DeafSA
and the DBE was affecting their ability to work and deliver,
and said that it was the people on the ground who were
affected by these kinds of matters. She also wanted to know
the role of parents in deaf education. This was something
that had been legislated on -- the DBE was not solely
responsible for the dispensation of deaf education. Everyone
should understand that they were at fault, not just the DBE.
The Chairperson asked whether the schools that had not
applied for concessions still had the window of opportunity
to do that. Deaf students should not be disadvantaged
because of this.
Dr Simelane said that the previous year, schools had until
the end of September to do that, so he would like to believe
that they still did have a window to apply. He also wanted to
respond to a number of issues that had been directed at him
regarding the Curriculum Management Team (CMT). He
wanted to clarify that the Minister’s request for the CMT had
actually been implemented, but this had been done
administratively. Moving forward, the DBE had had to look at
the expertise that would be greatly needed in terms of
implementing sign language. It had then looked at the
people who would be part of the national CMT. The whole
rollout plan had been implemented by the CMT. When it
came to starting with the preparation for implementing the
curriculum, members of the CMT had been involved, even in
the setwork for Grade 12s, with a team of experts looking at
literature. Maybe the matter of Mr Magongwa stepping off
was because he had pulled out himself to pursue a PHD
degree. This was not because he had been pulled by Dr
Simelane.
The meeting was adjourned.
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Audio

PMG South Africa

Schools for the Deaf: DEAFSA; DBE; UMALUSI; Principals
Organisation roundtable

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• Schools for the Deaf: DEAFSA; DBE; UMALUSI; Principals
Organisation roundtable
Documents
DeafSA - Deaf Education presentation
DBE - South African Sign Language Progress Report
on Implementation of SASL in KZNDoE
DeafSA - Deaf Education Report
DBE - Progress on Implementation of CAPS for
South African Sign Language Grades R-12
Present

Basson, Ms J ANC

Boshoff, Ms SH DA
Gina, Ms N ANC

Meso, Ms L ANC

Mokoto, Ms N ANC
Ngwezi, Mr X IFP
 Ntshayisa, Mr LM AIC
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