Education and knowledge keys to democracy
SOUTH Africa has an intricate history of disunity, antagonism, strife, oppression and resistance.
As a historical backdrop to the momentous transition, dating from 1994, the country has been one of overwhelming numerical majority versus diminutive political minority.
This differential apportionment of life opportunities was reflected in the economic role of Africans, whose residential status was marked by rural-urban dichotomy.
Under apartheid rule, the rural sector was generally regarded as backward, illiterate, povertystricken and generally less productive, except by way of chief labour, not excluding free labour as farm labour tenants.
On the other hand, the African residents in peri-urban townships were treated, as well as regarded, as the spill-over population from the rural environment, being less economically productive, though marginally different from their rural counterparts.
Twenty-eight years ago, South Africa emerged from the cosmic riddle of a racially constructed society to the global icon of democracy.
The major challenge in this connection came to be one of promoting and sustaining this new image, alongside reversing the socio-economic pathologies of yesteryears.
From this momentous transition onwards, of great importance for the process of renewing and rebuilding the South African State, has been the perceived role of the education system.
Being a service to society, education plays a catalytic role as the supreme good, a social security, an investment in human capital, and a distributive agency for various occupational types.
That is how far it impacts on overall functioning and observable deliverables of a democratic state.
Viewed against this background, the education system in this country is too important to be left largely to the discretion and decisions of political office bearers and state bureaucrats.
Ours should not be a case of democracy turned upside down.
There is a wealth of ideas to be tapped into from persons of different occupational backgrounds.
Their knowledge is crucial to the recovery and renewal of our democratic state.
There is an urgent need for a hectic debate, away from airy and run-of-the-mill politicking and virulent party political fighting.
It is high time educated and like-minded South Africans cast the slough of reticence and invisibility, and pooled their collective intelligence for a multi-faceted national assignment.
They need to craft an agenda for a robust and constructive dialogue, taking a critical look at reform initiatives to date, fragmentary planning, lingering backlogs, rash decisions, indices of lassitude, unrealistic expectations, and observed conflation between policy direction and ideological intent.
Let this value-added process unfold for our nation’s good health.