Lesufi must raise the bar to fulfil dream of Soweto uprising

THOSE who don’t know any better might have lashed out and called the children white trash. Teenage boys square up to each other inside a tight fist of a crowd where most have lifted their cellphones to film the action. Soon the pair start throwing punches. Buttons are ripped off and shirts torn open until both boys are on the ground, their heads perilously close to being kneaded into the tarmac like Play Doh.

It’s the kind of troubled imagery which you could see almost anywhere in the world. But here, it’s so easily roughhoused into comment – about race, class and the violent energy of the greater city spilling over on to the Joburg playground.

And, unfortunately for Glenvista High School, those pictures can be boxed with a couple of other Yizo Yizo moments it has hosted over the past decade. These include a pupil attacking a teacher while other children cheer him on and, back in 2010, security standing guard while South African Democratic Teachers’ Union members threatened to attack colleagues inside who were not on strike.

These issues are unrelated to a forensic audit at the school which, when it was made public, showed some pecuniary advantage may have been taken with hard-earned funds. Google Corruption Watch’s Loss of Principle report to see the depth of these kinds of fissures in trust at other schools in our ambit.

The incidents at Glenvista offer only a taste of the challenges which Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi is facing as the 199 school days of 2016 start in Joburg from this week.

In terms of violence, perhaps he doesn’t face quite the same conflict as his counterpart in the Western Cape, Debbie Schäfer, who was delighted to accept first place in the provincial matric results last week, while Lesufi had to settle for second. She’s fending off gangsters whose blood feuds have made at least 18 schools difficult to manage, and is again having to dispatch a police contingent of School Resource Officers to sites where children are severely under threat.

While Lesufi might not have to bring out the big guns to take on the cruelty of the Mongrels or the Americans, he is, however, going to have to play his hand carefully on many other tests of leadership ability. This is particularly true if he is to remain a likely future contender for minister of basic education.

The trouble goes straight from zero degrees to full boil. It’s reported that at least 50 000 learners haven’t been placed yet. Many will be from the city, but others will be new, from other provinces – drawn to Joburg by poverty and a lack of commitment to their progress.

Even a week outside the classroom sets a child back, but not all schools which should be starting classes this week are ready yet, despite being well allocated out of the R5.4 billion set aside in the 2015 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework.

Then there’s the problem of how to keep Grade 9s, 10s and 11s in school. This is especially after Lesufi was finally drawn to admit during a portfolio committee meeting in the Legislature late last year that there is a high drop-out rate and that it should be a significant concern.

Meanwhile, he’s got to watch corruption in his ranks. This especially after Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s ministerial task team investigation last year showed that Gauteng in particular was showing “signs of rot” around relationships between unions and department officials selling teacher posts. She was clear that this was systemic. The MEC is also going to have to crack down on tender corruption and compel his officials to stay true to the Public Administration Management Act. Last year, for instance, the principal of Southview High School in Lenasia was said to have received massive tenders to protect his school.

In the 40th anniversary year of the Soweto uprisings, Lesufi is going to have to raise the bar.

Haunting education challenges simply have to be beaten