The African National Congress (ANC) wants its five-year policy review amended to happen every 10 years.

Chairperson of the party’s subcommittee on education and health, Naledi Pandor, on Monday said most delegates at the national policy conference held in Johannesburg last week endorsed proposed policies.

“We had a recommendation that the ANC needs to look at it policy cycle, we recommended that the ANC consider a 10-year policy review period instead of the present five,” Pandor told reporters in Johannesburg during a report back on her commission’s discussions.

She said it was proposed that there should be regular monitoring of policy implementation within five years and then overall review only after 10 years.

The governing party, Pandor added, should improve its monitoring and evaluation functions, including roping in its branch members to monitor services in local communities.

“It was agreed to encourage all ANC branches to establish subcommittees in both health and education, because it was our view that we do not have enough structures on the ground. It is important to have people in branches who are aware of, for example, whether there is a clinic in the area or not, whether it’s well staffed and serves the community.”

The commission also proposed that health have a stand alone subcommittee, separated from education, due to the urgency of implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI).

Pandor said the pilot project on NHI has been completed and that the committee expected a report within two months.

“But we need the health professionals to make sure this momentous task is successful, we’re losing highly skilled professionals to the private sector,” she said.

On education, the commission agreed that communities should be encouraged to have an interest in science. The commission further proposed that a framework model for free higher education be developed to determine who qualifies for free education.

Furthermore, the commission said it would await the Heher commission’s report on the feasibility of free higher education. The Heher commission was appointed by President Jacob Zuma as students’ demand for free education grew across the country’s university campuses over the past couple of years.

Pandor said the education and health commission could not report back to media at last week’s conference due to time constraints.

The proposals would be submitted to ANC branches for further inputs ahead of the elective conference in December.