Address the real education challenges

IN THE bigger scheme of things, the polemic around the appointment of the first “black” teacher and the resultant resignation at Rustenburg Junior School can at best be described as a storm in a teacup. Graeme Bloch, in his book The

Toxic Mix, startlingly reminded us, and I quote from page 58, “schooling in South Africa is a national disaster… and are reinforcing the social and economic marginalisation of the poor and vulnerable”.

I am reminded of the 1975 statistic whereby the apartheid government allocated R644 for every white child, and heartlessly gave R42 for every black child.

On the evil of this ideology, edifices of architecturally designed infrastructure and human capital development that is evidenced in the former Model C schools were built.

And now those seeking to be politically correct and relevant are bugling the “transformation” clarion call, instead of focusing on the real needs and harsh realities of the failing South African education system. One cannot transform a system that, and let the truth be told, is built on the legacy of what was essentially evil and wicked, and are actually perpetuating the lie that the vestiges of this system is what one should actually aspire to.

What should actually be of concern to the broad citizenry is not the polemic around Ms Mthemba’s unfortunate situation, but how we are going to attend to the reality that seven out of 10 pupils enrolled in Grade 1 do not reach Grade 12. That statistic does not apply to those being educated in the former Model C system, but to poor black and coloured children. We must creatively address our real challenges.

GEORGE HECTOR Heathfield