The WCED provided the following answers to questions from the People's Post on education for learners with foetal alcohol syndrome, among other issues.

1. After speaking to six teachers from various schools from the Cape Flats all of them agreed that mainstream schools do not make provision for pupils who suffer from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome or other mental disabilities and in many cases these children are placed in mainstream schools where they fall victim to rape and sexual attacks. Could you please confirm if this is true and if there is a procedure that educators could follow if this should happen?

The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has special programmes in place to assist children experiencing barriers to learning, including those who suffer from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. We provide these services in line with national policy in White Paper 6 on Special Needs Education.

The policy emphasises the importance of inclusive education, to ensure access by learners with special education needs to mainstream schools, with appropriate support.

In terms of the policy, our existing special schools will become resource centres for mainstream schools. Mainstream schools can become full-service schools to accommodate learners with mild barriers to learning.

The policy envisages that all schools will eventually become full-service schools, supported by resource centres. Resource centres will continue to provide specialised support for learners with certain disabilities, for example, those who are deaf, blind or who are severely intellectually impaired.

The WCED is making steady progress towards implementing the policy.

Firstly, we have specialised district teams in place comprising psychologists, social workers and learning support teachers to support schools as they develop their capacity as full-service schools. We will expand the capacity of these teams considerably in the next two years as part of the redesign of the WCED.

Secondly, we have 72 special schools in the Western Cape that can act as resource centres, and we plan to launch another three centres this year. We are developing a funding model to allow for at least one resource centre in each of our 49 circuits.

Thirdly, our programme of developing full-service schools is well advanced in the Western Cape. We will open 30 new full-service schools during the course of this year.

Fourthly, the WCED has trained special education support teams in 80% of schools in the Western Cape so far. We expect to complete the process of training teams in the remaining schools in the very near future.

Unfortunately, the teachers you refer to do seem to be aware of the excellent work that is being done by many of our schools and our specialised education support staff. We would welcome the opportunity of briefing them.

You also quote them as saying that "in many cases these children are placed in mainstream schools where they fall victim to rape and sexual attacks".

These are shocking allegations. We would welcome an opportunity to investigate every one of these incidents and call on these teachers to provide details, as they are required to do in terms of the Children Act.

2. They also allege that these children never really pass or learn anything because they just get passed from phase to phase and eventually they leave school knowing nothing. Is this true?

This may apply in some cases, but we are very proud of those teachers and schools that have applied themselves professionally to this issue and who have achieved significant results.

3. The say that systemic testing that the education department does have shown that the bulk of the schools in the townships and the Cape Flats are seriously under-performing in literacy and numeracy and that the whole standard of education is very low. Please confirm or explain this allegation?

The WCED has conducted annual literacy and numeracy tests in primary schools in the Western Cape since 2002, alternating between Grades 3 and 6.

The tests form part of our strategy to improve learner performance in literacy and numeracy in primary schools, especially in our poorest communities.

You will find details on the WCED's diagnostic tests on our web site at http://wced.wcape.gov.za (search for "literacy and numeracy" on the search facility).

Literacy results have improved by about 12.2% in Grade 3 over the past five years, but learners still struggle with maths. The literacy result is significant, but we still have a long way to go before we achieve the results we are looking for.

Literacy and numeracy is the number one priority of the WCED. We are currently implementing a comprehensive literacy and numeracy strategy with our schools to address this issue.

We prefer not to generalise about the standard of education in townships and the Cape Flats, because we know that our teachers in these schools are engaged in difficult work that goes to the heart of what we need to do to transform our society.

Instead of pointing fingers, we prefer to point out those schools that are achieving results, often in very difficult circumstances. For example, 207 schools improved results in both literacy and numeracy in our Grade 6 tests last year, many of them in our poorest communities.

4. On issues of sexual and physical abuse the parent often refuses to make a case as they are either the abuser or wants to protect the abuser and this puts the teacher in a situation where he or she has to stick her neck out for the child and this lands the teacher in a lot of trouble. What support does the department offer these teachers once they decide to see that justice is done for this child? Some of the teachers even said they were threatened by parents with guns and weapons and felt scared and wanted to know what protection is available for them?

The WCED has drafted a policy called "Abuse no More" that provides guidelines on how to deal effectively with any form of abuse. You will find a summary of these guidelines and the full document on our web site.

If teachers feel at all threatened, they can telephone the WCED's Safe Schools Call Centre on 0800-45-46-47 and our Safe Schools staff will assist them in making alternative arrangements for dealing with issues that could involve intimidation of violence.

5. These teachers explained that there is one social worker in a metro pole and I wanted to know how many schools these social workers have to oversee.

In the past, the WCED employed about 20 social workers, comprising one per education district and the remainder in our youth care centres.

The WCED is now increasing the number of social workers employed by the department 167%, from 21 to 56, as part of the redesign of the WCED. This will mean at least one social worker in each of our 49 circuits.

6. Do you think that is enough?

Social work is not strictly the mandate of the WCED, and is provided by other government services, but we certainly see the need for social workers serving our school communities.

Our social workers will work with other professionals in specialised teams, including school psychologists and learning support advisors to provide well-rounded support.

7. Is there any plan to have a social worker at every school because right now teachers spend 60% of their time dealing with domestic and social problems and 40% in the class teaching?

See 6. We don't see a need at this stage for a social worker in every school, although we have identified a need for more social workers to work with teams of expert support staff for clusters of schools. For this reason, we are building strong teams in each of our 49 circuits as part of our redesign, which will assist schools in dealing social and related issues, in conjunction with our partners in other government departments.