Minister is preparing SA for poor matric results

SHE’S at it again, spinning her yarn on education. But it’s not her annual matric magic show where she dazzles the nation with her outstanding matric results.

This time she prepares the nation, bemoaning the disastrous effect the pandemic has had on education. With a straight face she claims that all the advances her department has made in education over the past 20 years has been wiped out by the virus. How terrible! But can you believe this woman, how she tries to pull the wool over our eyes?

What advances has her department made in all these years? The schools have plunged down the abyss and have become rich breeding grounds for all sorts of undesirable, anti-social, criminal activity. They represent a microcosm of a lawless, drug- and crime-infested society created by the ANC.

Can lowering the pass rate to 33% be regarded as an advance in education? Children can’t read, write or do basic calculations in mathematics. A 10-year-old child doesn’t know the alphabet. A survey conducted by her own department some years ago confirmed our worst fears about the deplorable state of education in the country – children couldn’t read and do basic calculations in mathematics.

How much worse is it going to be after schools were shut during the pandemic? Only a fool will believe that children have been meaningfully occupied in their homes. For most of the time they are busy on their PlayStations, playing games on their cellphones or watching television. And to add to the woes in education almost 150 schools were looted and vandalised during the July riots. No windows, no doors, no furniture and equipment and no toilets. How can learning go on under such terrible conditions?

In a way, Angie Motshekga could be right when she prepares us for what’s to come at the end of the year. But to say that the pandemic has wiped out all the advances in education over the past 20 years is an outrageous claim.

Only the gullible masses will believe her. I cannot understand how she escaped the axe when the president reshuffled his Cabinet. THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN | Kloof