The DBE develops, maintains and supports a South African school education system for the 21st century in which all citizens have access to lifelong learning, as well as education and training, which will, in turn, contribute towards improving quality of life and building a peaceful, prosperous and democratic South Africa.
The objectives of the DBE are to:
- improve overall educational performance in the long term by increasing the number of five-year-old learners enrolled in publicly funded Grade R classes in public and independent primary schools and community based early childhood development sites from 734 650 in 2011 to 950 000 learners by 2014/15
- reduce the number of illiterate adults in South Africa by 4,7 million by 2015/16 through the Kha Ri Gude mass literacy campaign.
- increase literacy and contribute to job creation by recruiting and training 41 870 volunteer educators for the Kha Ri Gude mass literacy campaign in 2014/15.
- improve the learning and teaching of critical foundational skills by developing, printing and distributing literacy/languages, numeracy/ mathematics and English first additional language workbooks to all learners from grades R to 9 each year.
- improve the quality of mathematics, science and technology education in order to increase the number of matric mathematics and science passes at all Dinaledi schools by providing additional learner and teacher support materials as well as additional training for mathematics and science teachers and monitoring the performance and participation of all Dinaledi schools in these subjects over the MTEF period.
- improve the capacity of technical secondary schools to contribute to skills development and training in the country.