Firm action needed now
BY now we are all familiar with the script. In the first week of every January, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announces the previous year’s matric results.
This is a key moment during which we collectively reflect on the state of our education and assess whether we are indeed training our young people for the kind of future we hope to have.
And so the script goes: amid pomp and ceremony, Motshekga reveals how matriculants in each province performed. Year after year, there are no prizes for guessing that those from the Eastern Cape are, overall, the worst of the lot.
Then follows the public outrage, often underpinned by calls for Education MEC Mandla Makupula to resign or be fired. Only, every year he gets to keep his job.
His boss, premier Phumulo Masualle, believes firing Makupula will not automatically fix the deeply systemic and – to an extent – uniquely structural problems in this province. In fact, Masualle reckons that a huge part of the problem has precisely been the revolving door at the department’s headquarters.
His goal is to ensure stability in its corridors of power and for this reason Makupula stays.
The annual trend is such that the provincial government sheepishly expresses concern over the dismal performance. However, it insists that if we all look hard enough we will realise that the situation is gradually improving.
They remind us that Rome was not built in a day and that patience is a virtue.
A new academic year then kicks off with authorities visiting poorly performing schools and flashing media cameras bear witness to promises to support these schools to do better. But as the German SUVs drive off the dilapidated school grounds, like clockwork the cycle repeats itself.
Thousands of children go to class. For the rich and middle classes who are somewhat financially cushioned from the chaos of the system, these hallways of learning exude hope and a promise of a bright future.
For the poor, they are filled with an air of desperation and a spirit of despondency as many so often lack the very basic need of every pupil – a teacher in a classroom. And then begin the protests, public meetings and more protests by desperate parents on the receiving end of a failing system.
Not much changes. Come the next January, Motshekga will again tell us that the children of this beautiful province we call the “Home of Legends” continue to languish at the bottom of the national matric class.
I agree with Masualle that our province is a severely troubled one.
Our problems predate Makupula. They predate our democracy.
Our problems are socio-economic in nature and, at times, they create an environment that makes learning impossible.
However, in his assessment of the situation, the premier misses a crucial point which I believe is the reason for the complete breakdown of public trust in his management of the issue – a lack of accountability.
On Monday, Masualle wrote in this newspaper, stating that despite the gloomy picture painted by the matric results, his government was hard at work, trying to create the right environment for our teachers to flourish.
He stated that in its long-term planning, his administration had identified several challenges it needed to deal with. These include a lack of performance monitoring at schools, the need to improve maths and science results, the need for teacher development and that of principals who are incapable of leading.
Not once did he mention how those in the system who fail to perform would be held accountable. Herein lies our biggest problem.
It is the absence of a leadership that prioritises a culture of accountability.
In resisting the pressure to let Makupula go, Masualle fails to comprehend that such a call is not only about the MEC. It signifies a broader public call for the premier to install a culture of accountability into a system so rotten that it embraces poor work ethic as a norm.
It is an outcry for him to deal with incompetence and corruption at all levels. It is an attempt to compel him no longer to tolerate administrators who fail so dismally to perform their duties that money meant to build classrooms is returned to the Treasury unspent, to serve in other provinces.
It is a call for him to act against district managers who preside over offices that are so detached from the very schools they are meant to serve.
The call is meant to propel Masualle to fight a culture where teachers go to school drunk and get away with it, where school governing bodies are dysfunctional and bullying is rife.
I am mindful that in areas where such prevails, the situation cannot be dealt with overnight. I am also aware that our schools are, tragically, often a battle ground for destructive labour union politics which often push them into a state of paralysis rather than effective centres of learning.
I am not for once suggesting that Masualle faces an easy task in this regard. I am simply pointing out that these issues need strong, uncompromising leadership willing to sacrifice its own comfort and political refuge to rescue the future of our children.
We need a leadership willing to raise the bar, one that understands that an increase by a percentage point or two in matric results is not a significant enough sign that the system is improving.
Not when our schools still produce too many young people who are barely literate enough to function and compete in a developing world such as ours. We need more. As parents, communities and businesses, we need to step up. We need to invest a lot harder to ensure better results for our children.
For his part, Masualle needs to lead a massive drive to rid the system of the rogues who have built castles of mediocrity and ineptitude. He needs to do this regardless of the potential cost to his political ambitions this year.
Failure to do so will leave an unfortunate legacy of a man whose heart was in the right place, but one who fell short of delivering on his supreme mandate.