Earlier today, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof.Blade Nzimande addressed the 10th Education Lekgotla of the Department of Basic Education.

The Lekgotla is a strategic priority event of the Department of Basic Education. This year’s event was hosted under the theme "Strengthening Foundations For Learning For a Resilient Future-Fit Education System."

Speaking under the theme “The Role of Science, Technology and Innovation in Enabling Education.”, Minister Nzimande highlighted the role of science as an enabler for national development by stating that “As the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation, we take the view that no nation can hope to achieve its development goals if it fails to invest in the development of its scientific capabilities.

As Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation, I am proud to state that South Africa has one of the most advanced and largest public science systems in Africa.

Over the past three decades, we have made significant investments which greatly enhanced our capabilities in science and the prestige of our scientists.

For instance, we have expanded our system by creating new specialist entities such as the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and the National Intellectual Property Office.

More recently, we made strategic policy shifts with the aim of making our public system science more responsive to our national priorities. In this respect, in 2019, we adopted our White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation.

To drive targeted research and the development of technologies in key economic sectors such as energy, agriculture, mining, health, and the circular and digital economies, with a strong focus on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence- we adopted a Decadal Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation, for the period 2022-2032.

As an outcome of our investments, our share of global research output (0,98%) has increased and making a difference in areas such as health innovation (HIV/Aids) and the development of rural livelihoods.

Our investments also have made it possible for us to win the bid to cohost big international science projects such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which upon completion will be the single biggest science infrastructure.

Recently, humanity’s biggest challenge has been the global outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the height of this pandemic, it was South African scientists who first identified the genome of a new and virulent SARS-CoV-2 variant, later named 501Y.V2.”

Outlining the DSTI’s key priorities for the next five years, Minister Nzimande stated that “in line with our new mantra of placing science, technology, and innovation at the centre of government, education, industry, and society, over the next five years, we will increase our focus on helping our country to develop credible pandemic preparedness capacity, more specifically local vaccine manufacturing capacity.

We will continue our focus of supporting the development of scarce and critical skills, through among others the Presidential PhD Programme (PPhP).”

On the relationship between education and science, Minister Nzimande stated that “Education and science are both instruments for unlocking human potential and therefore, education and science are both complementary and mutually reinforcing.

For instance, as part of our work to build a strong research workforce for our country, we are running a comprehensive postgraduate programme to equip students with the necessary research skills.

This programme cannot succeed unless the basic education system provides a reliable supply of school leavers with quality passes to pursue STEM disciplines at universities.

In a similar way, the basic education system must supply school leavers who qualify for engineering studies at TVET colleges who are needed to build and maintain the equipment used to conduct research.

Furthermore, for the basic education system to operate optimally, there is a need for policies and practices that are evidence-based.

Available data, which we constantly compile, analyse, and interpret, and the new research knowledge that is generated through research constitute the evidence used to inform policy decisions and practices.”

The Departments of Basic Education and Science, Technology and Innovation, have a longstanding partnership that covers a variety of areas.

Reflecting on this relationship, Minister Nzimande stated that “Minister Gwarube and I agree that the work of our two departments is intricately linked, and our mandates are interdependent.

This is why we recently had a bilateral agreement wherein we agreed to strengthen and diversify the partnership between our two departments."

The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation implements a number of programmes, which are aimed at enabling the mandate of the basic education department.

Some of these programmes include:

National Science Week- This is a science outreach programme which attracts over 4000 learners each year and engages them in a week long programme of exciting activities which are meant to spark their curiosity and encourage them to take up careers in science. The DSTI is currently looking at extending National Science Week to become National Science Month.

Stem Olympiads-This is a platform for learners to informally experiment with scientific theories and is important for the development of such skills as problem-solving, critical, and computational thinking, communication, and creativity.

SET Careers Material The DSTI produces and distributes a well-researched STEM career publication that explains STEM careers and associated paths.These can be downloaded from DSTI’s website for free and can also be delivered to schools, upon request.

4IR literacy- The DSTI Centre for High Performance Computing in Cape Town trained close to 200 educators from all nine provinces as trainers in the basics of coding.

Enquiries: 
Veli Mbele 
Cell: 064 615 0644 
E-mail: Veli.Mbele@dst.gov.za