Education plan fails

While President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address (Sona) scored an A for its vision and plan for economic renewal, it scored an F for education.

He had many pressing points to make about South Africa’s dysfunctional parastatals and weeding out corruption. But it would have been good to hear him give a considered, sobering assessment of the state of SA’s education system.

He could have acknowledged that it hasn’t yet turned the corner from deeply dysfunctional, and delivered a strategy to map the way forward.

Instead, he spoke of government’s commitment to basic infrastructural backlogs, such as toilets.

The fact that the president had to raise this as an issue at all is shameful.

Ramaphosa also created fanfare by announcing the roll out of e-tablets for all school children.

If he sincerely believes access to this technology is one of SA’s most pressing problems, he has been badly advised by his minister.

If the teaching and learning experience is poor, access to a tablet will make no difference.

Where will SA’s skills come from to compete in the fourth industrial revolution? Probably not from giving pupils access to e-tablets when the principles of basic numeracy still aren’t properly taught.

Regarding the technical and vocational education and training sector, Ramaphosa echoed promises that have been made before.

But what should have been discussed was how much progress or lack thereof has been made in the past five years to strengthen this important sector.

In the week prior to Ramaphosa’s speech, student protests erupted on a number of university campuses.

One ended in tragedy: Durban University of Technology student Mlungisi Madonsela, was shot dead – allegedly by a security guard hired to protect the campus.

Ramaphosa acknowledged the protests and Madonsela’s death. But the sector urgently needed some stabilising assurances.

Will the monetary promises be delivered on? Suellen Shay is a professor at UCT This article is republished from The Conversation.