million social grants are paid each month benefiting nearly a third of our population these grants have olivea ated a great deal of poverty amongst our people and deeply valued by our people. we know however that if we are to break the cycle of poverty we need to educate the children of the poor we have insisted that this should be started in early childhood today we have nearly one million children who are participating in early childhood development facilities this is significant. we are seeing improvements in the outcomes of our basic education system the metric pos rating creased from sixteen point six percent in twenty zero nine to seventy five point one percent last year that is phenomenal progress. there are currently almost one million students who are and rod in higher education up from five hundred thousand in one thousand nine hundred four that represents progress. as we enter a new era we are determined to build on these achievements. as we confront the challenges we face and accelerate progress in building a more prosperous and equitable society we have been we have seen a moderat