The general education certificate (GEC) programme has not yet been implemented in schools as a result of low attendance among Grade 9 pupils and disruptions.

The department of basic education said these were some reasons  the pilot study did not take off.

The department presented the annual report for 2020/2021 to the basic education committee on Friday.

The plan for the certificate was announced by minister of basic education Angie Motshekga in 2019.

The certificate was meant to offer pathways between schools and colleges at a level below Grade 12. 

At the time, Motshekga said the first cycle of systemic evaluations in grades 3, 6 and 9 was going to be finalised by June last year and the field trial for GEC at the end of Grade 9 was scheduled for completion at the end of July that year.

The department's chief director of planning, research and co-ordination, Carol Nuga Deliwe, said: “As a corrective action the pilot study had been  scheduled for the third and fourth school terms this year. The pilot study report will be consolidated from nine provincial education reports.”

She said that Covid-19 restrictions have resulted in the closing of special care centres and some pupils remained at home even after the centres were eventually allowed to operate by the department of social development.

“In addition, some residential high special care centres did not allow outreach teams to have direct contact with learners as they fear that they may be infected with Covid-19. Outreach team members could not reach all the learners to provide the necessary services,” she said.

However, she said remote support will be provided where and when necessary.

“The department will use the online tracking tool to monitor and support provincial education departments and ensure the necessary support, that enables learners to participate in learning and development, is provided,” she said. 

The committee also heard that the department had a budget of R23.3bn and only spent R22.9bn.

Department CFO Patrick Khunou said there were various reasons for underspending.

He said in administration the reason was due to delays in filling vacant positions.

“In curriculum policy, support and monitoring this was due to Covid-19 restrictions. Physical monitoring of provinces could not take place as planned on a number of internal projects. There was also a backlog as construction had stalled since the built industry was closed during hard lockdown alert levels 5 and 4,” he said.

Khunou said most conditional grants were spent at 100% except when it came to the learners with profound disability grant for the KwaZulu-Natal education department.

“This was due to non-compliance on reporting. [A] rollover request will be submitted to National Treasury once the province submits the supporting documentation,” Khunou said.

He said the department incurred Irregular expenditure of R3.2bn, of which R2.7bn relates to irregular expenditure of previous years.