Pat Sidley
FINDING a school for your child that will give him a “good education” has to be one of life’s major decisions. Who would know better about good schools than the MECs for education in our nine provinces? And if they decide on a school, is that not likely to be an indication of where to find a quality education, or at least where resources may find themselves in the future?
Did all of the MECs scuttle into the pleasurable and pricey surrounds of Eton-on-the-Veld schools? Or did they stick with local schools?
Approached this week, most MECs or their representatives would not say exactly where their children were. The exception was in Bloemfontein, where the information was provided promptly and frankly.
* Sakhiwo Belot, MEC for education in the Free State, sends his three boys to private schools: CBC and Brebner.
* Mamkoena Junior Gaoretelewe, MEC for education in the North West, used to send her children to a school in Taung, her home town. She needs them to be near her in Mmabatho, but this does not mean sending them to the expensive private international school there. They will attend a state-aided school (model C) near her new workplace and home in the capital.
* Martha Olckers, the Western Cape’s MEC, has children whose schooling was completed more than a decade ago. At least she has no direct vested interests in the debates that will rage around her head in her province.
* Similiarly, T Jomeat, the Northern Cape’s education minister, will have no conflict of interests when the debates take place. He “is not married yet”, we were informed, and has no children.
* Northern Transvaal MEC Aaron Motsoaledi’s information system was a bit more reticent, wondering why the Weekly Mail & Guardian needed the information. All that was forthcoming was a declaration that the minister has three children, one of them in pre-school, one at primary school and the third not yet old enough to be part of the education system.
They will join their father in Pietersburg next year and will be sent to an “ordinary government school” — not model C, the ministerial spokesman said.
* Gauteng’s MEC for education, Mary Metcalfe, sends her children to a model C school in Johannesburg, believed to be Parkview — though no one would confirm this. “We don’t know,” was the reply.
* Eastern Cape MEC Nosima Balindlela lives in Stutterheim and commutes to her office in Bisho. All that could be ascertained in the absence of most of her staff was that her children are still at the school they attended before she assumed her job — in Stutterheim.
Other MECs could not be reached.