Angie’s empty-promises tragedy
IDON’T have time for Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga. Quite frankly, I don’t know why she has been retained as the minister, after two children drowned in pit toilets due to the horrific state of infrastructure in our schools. President Ramaphosa, too, made an unrealistic promise that, by this week, there would be no schools without proper toilets.
We all knew this promise was unrealistic when it was made, and that it would come to naught. I can only assume that the president made this promise under the advice of Motshekga, as his highest adviser on basic education. This reminds me of a similar promise that former president Thabo Mbeki made in his State of the Nation Address back in 2006 – declaring that by June of that year there would be no schools under trees.
At the presidential advisory committee on education back in 2008 – a full two years after this empty promise was made – the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Enver Surty, claimed that the reason for this was that “schools under trees are a moving target” due to severe weather conditions in rural areas. I, again, assume he did not know this before allowing the president to promise to eradicate this unacceptable state of school infrastructure.
Surty is still Angie’s deputy and, I must assume, that this week they will jointly come up with another fantasy-driven explanation as to why a child somewhere may well drown in a pit latrine, 24 years after democracy. This is unacceptable.
While no one expects school infrastructure to be fixed overnight, it’s cruel for those in government to make promises they know they cannot keep. What further baffled me was that only after Ramaphosa made this head-in-the-clouds promise did the department start conducting an audit of how many school pit latrines exist, suggesting they have been sleeping on the job.
In other words, their advice to the president to make the promise after a second death was recorded was made without any realistic plan to follow through. This is just one promise of many made and reneged upon by official departments across all spheres of government. No wonder we are becoming the protest capital of the world – communities are becoming fed up with the poor conduct of Angie and her ilk – making promises, only to renege. As we prepare to mark 42 years of the education protests by the youth of 1976, we have to take a long, hard look at the leadership in education and make radical changes.
It would be a mistake to use this issue as the only yardstick to measure what has happened in education since the onset of democracy, but it remains a crucial issue to highlight. A proper assessment must urgently take place on issues such as curriculum planning in schools. I have to commend the minister for ensuring that history becomes a compulsory subject in schools – one wonders why such a crucial decision for nation-building took 24 years to make. But as they say, better late than never.
There are also issues that tend to make it to the headlines, such as poor library and laboratory facilities in schools, lowering of pass marks in certain subjects, the fast-tracking of learners who have failed grades in order to create space in lower classes, poor university passes by matrics, and an overall failure rate that does not account for almost 50% of people who started school 12 years before.
The worrying issue of our placing at the bottom of world literacy and numeracy scales needs to be examined, without being sensational about it. The fact that every time these issues are in the national discourse, there is public outrage must also speak of the department’s poor communication strategy and the minister’s failure to inform the public, thereby creating an impression that her department has no clue how it should deal with problems, when, in fact, there may well be a plausible explanation for their, apparently, strange policy decisions.
The separation of responsibilities between provinces and national government has also come up. The failure by the Limpopo Education Department to deliver textbooks on time a few years ago, and the inconsistent introduction of technology-based education in several provinces, is also a matter for introspection.
The improvement of the matric pass rate over the years and how this can be enhanced needs a solid leadership that can assist provinces in learning from the success of the other. Motshekga’s protégé, Gauteng MEC Panyaza Lesufi, is a shining star among leaders in education, and maybe it is time that he be considered for higher office.
This would be a fitting tribute to the youth of 1976 rather than mere rallies and slogans. There is no logic in carrying on with someone like Motshekga, who has clearly overstayed her welcome. With the challenges of language, discipline, teacher development and curriculum transformation, this area of national life also deserves a new dawn.
The promises of better infrastructure must continue to be at the top of the agenda – this includes urgent attention being paid to so-called farm schools across rural areas to avoid the miseducation of our children. One of the biggest challenges that the new leader of this area of our national life will have to tackle is the invincibility of the unions, particularly the incorrigible Sadtu, to which I soon intend to dedicate column space.
Their wanton destruction of education can no longer be ignored. It is trite that they are able to get away with this because they are part of the moribund tripartite alliance. This is one area where Motshekga tried her best to put her foot down – but we wait with bated breath to see her implement the recommendations of various inquiries pointing an accusatory finger at Sadtu and their anti-education ways.
As we celebrate the youth of 1976, we need to take problems in education more seriously than making empty promises for political expediency. Our thoughts must go to the families of the children who lost their lives under the care of our education authorities. The belated promises of these authorities are cold comfort to these families, who still weep at how callously their children’s lives were cut short when they were at school in hope of securing a bright future – a mandate of our education system.