I wonder if the education big shots – those with the lion’s share of responsibility for the education system – sleep well at night.
If I had their portfolios, I don’t think I would. The interminable list of education shortcomings, coupled with the hard fact that the lives of youngsters – and the future of our nation – are at stake, would keep me tossing and turning in a cold sweat.
If they do sleep well, it must be because they have reached the hard-won conclusion that the best that can be hoped for is that at least a few – if not the majority – are receiving an education that’s worth something. As for the others – the guinea pigs, the next lost generation, the many falling between the cracks – well, they’re just the collateral damage of the system’s gaping flaws.
Or perhaps they deal with it by keeping their eyes averted, concentrating instead on their monthly packages and personal ambitions.
As the nation’s schools begin their 2005 journey, glaring issues such as bureaucratic incompetence and learner exclusion once again stand out on the education landscape. Reports have flooded in of learners who didn’t get to school – but not because they missed the bus. There wasn’t a bus for them at all, because of payment disputes between education departments and transport companies. Equally commonplace are stories of learners who are refused admission – because they don’t have uniforms, their parents can’t afford school fees, or because they don’t have the right paperwork.
Then there’s the ongoing failure of the government’s feeding scheme, for so many youngsters their only daily bread – particularly in the Eastern Cape. It seems like a hellish cycle of doom: small businesses are awarded the tenders to deliver the food; the provincial education department paralyses them by not paying them; the small businesses can no longer deliver (How do you convince the food suppliers to continue to extend your credit yet again? How do you fix your broken-down truck when your cash flow has dried up?). And the children go hungry!
As a province often referred to as ‘worrisome” in the corridors of the national Department of Education, the Eastern Cape is winning a special place in our nation’s mythology for its steadfast persistence for living in chaos. But while it does seem to be the outstandingly inept province, all the others share its problems to different degrees. When we add up all the issues, can we say with confidence that our education system has really turned the corner? And are we always going to be using the low-water mark of apartheid as our measuring stick?
Isn’t it about time that we focus on measuring ourselves against something loftier and more ambitious – like the 1955 declaration on education in the Freedom Charter (which will be celebrating its 50th anniversary on June 26)? Remember this, under the subheading ‘The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!”: ‘Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit.”?
But it’s not just the education bigwigs who should be having sleepless nights. As long as one child has to walk 10km on an empty stomach to be turned away from school, we are all failing our nation’s vision of justice.