Stop failing our children
THE NATIONAL Development Plan (NDP), which envisages a different South Africa by 2030, is quite clear. Education, training and innovation lie at the base of every aspiration, intention and ambition in that document, and there is almost nothing that can be achieved without those three elements being in place.
Yet, despite education having the largest allocation in the national budget, the government is still not doing everything it can to see our children reach their greatest heights. In fact, it is failing thousands even as you read this – not only through acceding to the often impossible political demands of some teachers, and not only though allowing sex pests to work in our classrooms.
It is failing thousands of children by still not caring enough to make sure they have water, electricity and ablution blocks, let alone stocked libraries, labs and fencing at their schools. It is failing many children by not repairing roofs which have been damaged through force of nature or political strife, or giving them enough desks and chairs so they can sit down during lessons.
There are still far too many children carrying water to school over long distances just so that they will have something to drink. There are still schools that look like cow-sheds, only smaller, which are supposed to be places of learning for the people who will be expected to help implement our cherished NDP.
The list of woes is now at the point where we can no longer accept what’s happening. And if this is because Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga is engaged in battles with some of her MECs, this is a shocking reason in itself.
Join us as we embark on a three-month campaign to expose the war against our children as the government approaches a first deadline of November 29 to have school infrastructure in place.
We note, for instance, how some schools have been ticked off the infrastructure list for providing a “partial water supply”, when there might be only one tap. That’s not acceptable.
We’re watching, and we’re going to keep telling the most important story in our country.