A report has been posted on the SA Department of Education website summarising the state of the new curriculum if anyone is interested, you can find the announcement here:

http://www.education.gov.za/dynamic/dynamic.aspx?pageid=310&id=2151

I picked a few quotes from it that motivate me to continue and to give you a flavour for things:
Books still matter (see the attached Problems.png file at the bottom for the plot) ...

Nonetheless, fees were reported to be the number two problem amongst 7 to 18 year olds attending school in 2003, behind a lack of books.

There is going to be a larger than average increase in the number of high school
students ...

While overall population growth over the 1995-2003 period averaged 2.0 per cent per annum, the growth rate for 16 to 18 year olds was almost twice that at 3.7 per cent per annum.

The situation is particularly acute in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Gauteng, where growth amongst the 16 to 18 year age-group was most rapid between 1995 and 2003.

A vast number of which will come from very broken homes placing an even larger burden on schools ...

A trend that is set to continue over the medium term and which has important implications for the education system is that of rising orphanhood rates. The number of single orphans rose by almost half a million to just over two million between 1995 and 2003, while the number of double orphans increased by approximately 150 000 to 371 000 over the same period.

This increase places significant burdens on affected children's families and on the state. The fact that significant numbers of children still live in households that are unable to provide them with sufficient food points to the important role that school feeding schemes play in supplementing learners' diets.

Mark