Lost for words: At the heart of the debate about norms and standards is government’s accountability.
In an article written by Zille, the Democratic Alliance leader said Motshekga had fulfilled her constitutional responsibilities "to a far greater degree than any of her predecessors" and laid the blame for some of education's greatest failures at the feet of incompetent provincial education departments and voters who get "the government they deserve". She was reiterating comments she made at a DA Young Professionals forum on Tuesday night.
Zille received support for her column on Twitter:
… including encouragement from Motshekga's spokesperson, Hope Mokgatle:
Zille said Motshekga could not be blamed for the Limpopo textbooks crisis because "the timeous ordering and distribution of textbooks is a provincial responsibility" and "there was no money left in that mismanaged province's budget for textbooks".
Motshekga did what she was supposed to do, Zille said, by setting "policies, frameworks, norms and standards" for textbook delivery". Zille said that chaos around teacher salaries and provincial finances were largely as a result of "huge numbers of excess teachers, who cannot be 'matched and placed' because of opposition from the so-called SA Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu)".
According to her, officials put in place by Motshekga to fix this were blocked at every turn by the union, which "the president backed … against Motshekga". Her worthwhile policies cannot be implemented, Zille said, "without sufficient capacity in the provinces and the co-operation of Sadtu".
A page out of Zille's book
Power FM 98.7 talk show host Eusebius McKaiser said in a column published in the Star on Monday the department's spokesperson, Panyaza Lesufi, known for spearheading questionable media approaches in times of departmental crises, should take a page out of Zille's book.
"Sies, Panyaza Lesufi, sies! You are meant to be our scandal-ridden Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga's spin doctor, and yet Helen Zille, the DA leader, of all people, managed in one single speech last week to defend Angie [Motshekga] more impressively than you have done in the past year with your stream of rhetoric in the media. Hawu!"
ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, agreed with McKaiser:
Freelance columnist Mabine Seabe commended this:
There were warnings from the twitterati:
And criticism from others:
Angriest response
But perhaps the angriest response came from civil society. Responding to the call for Motshekga to publish norms and standards for school infrastructure, Zille said Motshekga was confined to establishing norms and standards, under specific conditions but that provinces actually ran the school system.
Motshekga recognised that the idealistic norms and standards for "state-of-the-art infrastructure could not possibly be achieved in the real world", Zille said, adding that the minister is working through the "tortuous public participation processes required by law" to develop norms "that take account of reality".
The most recent development in the battle for the norms to be published – a six-month extension – was therefore justified, Zille said.
She appeared, though, to have overlooked Motshekga's numerous unmet promises to publish the norms, and failures to adhere to her own deadlines.
However, others did not:
Even Equal Education, campaigners for four years for the norms, agreed with Zille on one thing: