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/ 17 April 2008

Asmal hits back at Zuma

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African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma this week received terse documents minutely detailing the government’s decision to close teacher training colleges from the mid-1990s.

It was the riposte by former minister of education Kader Asmal, who was publicly attacked last weekend by Zuma for that decision.

Speaking in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma reportedly said: ‘Asmal is a man who thinks he knows every-thing. What he did was worse than what the apartheid regime did to our education system.”

Asmal confirmed this week that he faxed the document detailing the closure of the colleges to Zuma’s office at Luthuli House, ANC headquarters.

Asmal said the document showed that the Cabinet’s decision to close the colleges was taken during the tenure of his predecessor, Professor Sibusiso Bengu. ‘I was only responsible for the implementation,” he said. Asmal was minister of education from 1999 to 2004.

The document states there was wide consultation about the closure of colleges. The provinces were particularly involved and this was at a time when ‘Comrade Zuma was MEC [provincial minister] for economic development in KwaZulu-Natal”.

The faxed response also states that:

  • Between 1994 and 1998 the number of teacher training colleges was cut from 150 to 50 by the provincial departments of education;

  • The Department of Education established a technical committee in 1997 to look at the funding, governance and administrative implications of transferring colleges. The framework was finalised before the 1998 elections and approved by the Cabinet;

  • The decision to merge the colleges into other institutions was made because ‘many of the colleges were of poor quality, often little more than glorified high schools, and were costly — it cost three to four times more to train teachers in colleges than universities”. The teacher training colleges were small — some had as few as 20 students — and therefore did not benefit from economies of scale;

  • Colleges, which were part of provincial departments of education, were brought under the Department of Education when they were incorporated into universities in terms of the 1996 Constitution and the Higher Education Act of 1997; and

  • Asmal announced the incorporation of 27 remaining colleges into universities with effect from January 2001 after consulting the provincial ministers for education.